The Archangel Effect Book one: Stargates and Veritechs'
by Robotech1984
Summary: The ESMF Battlefortress Archangel is transported to the stargate universe following a battle to prevent the destruction of the homeworld of the Hansa Imperial star empire, Lantea, from the hands of the Prometheans, but this is only the start of a journey that will make their battle against the Prometheans seam like a walk in the park at the beginning of their nightmarish journey as
1. Chapter 00: Disclaimer

**Author's Note.**

Anything that you recognise in this story I don't own, I wish I did but I don't.


	2. Chapter 01: Over the Cliff

**Chapter 01: Over the Cliff.**

_Combat Log Date 56462, admiral J G Cutter recording._

_It would appear that the deep space monitoring fleet was right for a change, and after confirming the data with both the Hansa Imperial Star Empire and the Zodiac republic, we have detected multiple hyperspace tracks incoming._

_Macross Command is unsure as to the exact number and type of ships, but given that they are coming in from the Delta quadrant, and the location of the Promethean hyperspace catapult that was destroyed by the ESMF Victory six months ago, then, fleet command is taking absolutely zero chances with this._

_The Archangel along with the rest of the entire 7th battle-fleet, and elements of the 6th, 8th and 10th are currently moving to intercept them before they reach the most likely destination for this Promethean force, as is an equal number of Zodiac battle-fleets._

_However there is only one slight problem in that the most likely destination of this incursion isn't Earth, but is in fact the homeworld of the Hansa star empire… Lantea!_

_Right now fleet admiral Max Quest, aboard the fleet flag ship the dreadnought ESMF Manta, is currently trying to gain permission for the combined fleet to cross the neutral zone and enter Imperial controlled airspace, but several members of the Imperial high command (and, I'm afraid to say it, even some of our own battle group commanders), are being down right pig-headed in their stubbornness!_

_This would be downright funny in another time and place if it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation, and the fact that even at maximum burn, the combined fleet would only arrive at the best an hour to an hour and half before the predicted time of the Promethean forces, and that's only if we leave within the next twenty minutes._

_Combat Log update._

_This is going to be close…_

_… The fleet has crossed into Imperial airspace but at current speed, we will be around two hours behind the Promethean forces._

_Admiral Quest has ordered the fleet to go to maximum burn, but we are slowly losing ships as they drop out of formation._

_The most optimistic of tactical estimates show that only two hundred of our ships, just a little more than a full combat wing, will arrive in time to help, out of a force consisting of seven thousand, including a squadron from the Macross Cannon force, to aid the Imperial forces around Lantea._

_The Republic forces are suffering even worse, with estimates showing that only the 17th battle-group, some one hundred ships, will make it in time._

_Thank the maker however that we have been picking up Imperial forces as we go. So far a total of fifty mixed ships have joined with the fleet, mostly destroyers and heavy cruisers but all so a few battleships, with another six battle-fleets expected to meet us in the Lantea system. We are rapidly having to work out formations and battle plans for the forthcoming engagement, thankfully we have the bases of the recent war against the Disruptors, so we at least have some sort of a base from which to work from._

_I'm sure that I'm not the only person within the combined fleet remembering the last time that a fleet of this size was assembled or what it cost the quadrant…_

_Yet what worries me the most isn't the size of the fleet, but the fact that of the two hundred ships from the Macross fleet contingent which will arrive in time to Lantea, only an eighth, including the Archangel herself, have had the new armour, pin-point barriers, shields and weapons that the ESMF Victory brought back with her from her time in the Delta quadrant, installed or being upgraded with, and sub-consciously that this will mean two things._

_First that we will be at the tip of this fleet's spear, and second, that the Prometheans will throw everything including the kitchen sink, at us so that they can sink us fast._

_How I wish that the Big M was here, but she's on the other side of the ESUN dealing with the Triolian high council._

-{[]}-

Admiral Cutter closed the log and walked out of the ready room and onto the bridge of the Macross Fleet vessel ESMF Archangel, the second of the type two SDF Macross class battlefortress to be built, and settled into his command chair and turned to face the ships executive officer and aide-de-camp commodore Hunter, "Report commodore?"

The Zentron commodore nodded his head by way of greeting his commanding officer before consulting the PADD he was holding. "Sir, all stations report that they are ready. All weapons stations and destroids are manned and standing-by, shields, pin-point barriers and the new trans-phasic armour are all in the green. Flight operations reports that all of the ghost combat drones are now off-line and their power cores have been removed, and colonel Neumeier's MACO's are deploying the last of the emergency shields and defence turrets around the critical areas."

Cutter nodded, praying that those defence turrets and shields wouldn't be needed, and that if they had to be used then they would hold long enough to allow the ships compliment of MACO's, fleet security personnel and the special operations team, which was now a part of all ships after their use during the ESMF Victory's return from the delta quadrant, to fight of any Promethean boarding parties that managed to board the ship.

"I've taken the liberty of having major Sisko assign all of the security and MACO's to those areas, and had them issued with FN-P117's, the new night shade plasma grenades and hand-to-hand weapons."

Cutter turned around to face the Archangel's chief of security gun-sight commander and second-in-command, and tried not to scowl. "You've issued guns and grenades to the crew? What happens if they damage any of the critical systems in the middle of the battle?"

Commander Kira Hudson stared back with a grim smile. "The one seventeen's don't have the power to go through the ships bulkheads, but if fleet command is right, then they should be able to destroy the servos of a Promethean Knight, that's if they are able to bypass their personal shielding system." He said with a scowl at the idea.

Cutter tried not to flinch at the prospect that any ricochets maiming or killing the crew as they were fighting for their lives, but he had to admit that the idea of the old school style projectile weapons was worth the risk. More so after reading some of the highly classified reports from the Macross-E's latest encounter with the Prometheans.

"Oh. Well let's hope that we don't need to find out." Hunter said wishfully.

"Hopping gets you killed, sir." Muttered Hudson, just loud enough so that it could be heard by both Cutter and Hunter who cringed and exchanged worried looks. However before either the admiral or Hunter could respond, master chief petty officer Brown spoke up. "Admiral, we are receiving a hail from and Imperial star cruiser, the Blood Haze."

"On screen." Cutter ordered while confusion crossed his mind for a moment until he saw the face which appeared on the main tactical screen. "Dux Atriums, well this is a surprise."

Atriums nodded and smiled warmly over the comm-link. "Actually it's Prefectus now," he said with a slight grown, "and yes it is a pleasant one." He paused and turned indicating to somebody just off screen to step into view. "I have been reliably informed that your gun-sight commander knows my executive officer."

Cutter turned and was surprised, if not downright stunned, to see his second-in-command actually smile, and judging by the movement of Hunters eyebrows, he was just as shocked.

"Hello again Kira." Said sub-commander Dvorak with a smile on her face just as freely. "I'm glad that you survived the war intact."

"Dilectus meus, et unus. It's good to see you again Karina." The sub-commander blushed and Cutter made a mental note to ask the commander the exact meaning of the phrase after the battle. "It's been a few years. I tried to get a message to you a few months after the war, but I never got a reply."

"I was… occupied," Said Dvorak as Atriums coughed lightly by her side, "I would like the chance to catch up after the battle, as we have a lot to talk about."

Hudson raised his eyebrow in a rather concerned way before nodding. "Sure Karina. You still owe me that personal tour of the imperial senate building remember?"

Dvorak smiled, yet everyone on the bridge of the Archangel caught the worry in her eyes, "I remember, and I always keep my promises. Te amo salvator meus commander." Without waiting for a reply the imperial sub-commander walked off the screen, presumably to return to her post.

The bridge crew of the Archangel and Prefectus Atriums watched her leave before Atriums returned to the centre of the screen to continue addressing Cutter.

"So… with the re-acquaintances concluded, shall we get down to business?" He said as he nodded to a member of his own bridge crew who was off-screen. "My ship, and another five conquer class heavy battle-cruisers have been assigned to work with you and are now moving into formation with your ship. I've had the transponder codes transmitted to you."

"Then I guess that we need to go over the attack plans for the combined unit." Asked Cutter.

"Yes. I do hope that you and your gun crews are able to keep up with the Imperial fleet's finest heavy battle-cruiser squadron." While the smile which was on Atriums' face was that of a predator, his eyes clearly betrayed the fact that he was laying down a friendly challenge.

"Oh I'm sure that we will in fact," replied cutter, as both Hunter and Hudson grunted in support. "The same stakes?"

Atriums laughed, much to the shock of both bridge crews. "Why of course, one case of Sith ale against one case of Scottish whisky and we drink on the Imperial war college when the battle is done. See you on the flip side, admiral."

"Donec omnes unum sint, Prefectus." With that said the signal cut and returned to the familiar image of the ships view screen and the star flying past.

Looking around the bridge Cutter stood up. "Alright people. We will reach Lantea in five hours, so as of right now all Alpha and Beta shift personal are to take a three hour break. Gamma and Delta shifts is to cover for now, then report to their assigned battle stations when they are relieved."

Cutter watched as his orders were carried out before making his way back across the bridge to the ready room to write a letter to his wife and daughters back on Epsilon III.

-{[]}-

Five hours later Cutter looked around the bridge as he sat in the command chair. The crew was nervous, and rightly so with the ships senior special operations members, lieutenant commander Janet Welsh in her personal exo-frame equipped with the fire force assault weapons system.

The Promethean's had also increased speed, which had forced the fleet to do the same, and although they were mere moments from entering the Lantea system the increase in speed had cost them a further one hundred ships from the combined fleet, including their supper heavy hitters of the ten Macross III class cannons.

"We'll be in system in the next two minutes." Said an officer at one of the lower comm-scan stations.

"Activate and deploy the armour, arm trans-phasic, neidhart and Korinthos torpedoes. Relay those instructions to the other ships in the battle group." Ordered Cutter as the distinctive sound of the armour clunking into place over the ship's hull, and though he knew that the sound was normal the sound of it still gave admiral Cutter the creeps, as it sound as if something was trying to claw its way into the ship.

Even though the Prometheans has assimilated the armour technology which had been developed by the ESMF Victory. The Macross Fleet corps of combat engineers felt that they had modified it to increase any ships chance of survival by seventy-five to eighty percent when engaging the Promethean forces, and against the other races of the galaxy then the odds of survival was well over one hundred percent for even the smallest Fire Hawk class ship.

The other modifications that the ESMF Victory had gained from its run-in with its future self-had also been applied to the Archangel, as well as several others in the battle-group.

Yes, those upgrades would meant that the Archangel would be living up to her name as the defender of the weak, and be part of the first assault to engage the Promethean force, but right now Cutter would rather have all of those upgrades instead of facing the Prometheans instead of being on any of the ships that didn't.

"Thirty seconds."

"Order the assault force to begin the plan."

Around the Archangel the combined elements from the Imperial fleet and the Zodiac forces seemed to shimmer and then fade from sight as they activated their clocking systems and slipped behind the dozen assorted SDF class battlefortress's and Drake class SDF gunfortress's which had already had their own trans-phasic armour energized and deployed.

"Tactical, concentrate on the closest ship, focus on the areas which fleet command told us." Thank the maker for commander Preston and Ms Annika Handson. They had both sent as much data as they could to the combined fleet, especially about where to target on each known type of ship which was likely to be in the assault, the challenge though was going to find the right spot on a perfect shape for the fleet's gunners.

"Reverting to normal space, now." Said lieutenant Arnold Newmann, another member of the ships special operations squad in his own exo-frame and the snip force assault weapons system from the primary helm station.

As the lead elements of the force returned to normal space they were forced to immediately go into evasive manoeuvres due to their flight path being littered with the wrecks of the Imperial home fleet, over two hundred ships from B-Type dreadnoughts to smaller Orion class frigates and raptor class space fighters all lay in ruin before the assembled allied forces.

As the Archangel, despite her massive size, seemed to dance around the debris as loud and painful scraping could be heard as the ship literally smashed through the remains of an older Knight class assault ship. Suddenly the whole ship shook twice in rapid succession.

"Report!" commanded Hunter before Cutter could respond.

"Sir, one of the Nazca's collided with some debris." Stated Hudson as he gripped his console to help keep his balance. "They spun into the Liverpool's port engines. Even with their new armour, they've suffered heavy damage forcing them to drop back."

"Bohze Moi!" Cutter cursed under his breath, they weren't even in actual combat and already they had lost two ships. This was definitely going to be a long battle.

"We have ten Promethean vessels engaged with around two thousand Imperial ships. Three of them are disengaging from the main fight and are on an intercept course."

"On screen," Everyone watched as the main tactical display changed to show three of the giant warships turned and slowly advanced on their small force of ships.

"Admiral, the enemy fleet consists of five Saratoga type 3 battleships, two Acidalium class destroyers, a single Grave class and two type six Saratoga class. Both of the type sixes and one of the type threes are moving to engage us."

"Load Korinthos missiles. Order all other ships to do the shame. All ships are to target the left most warship but they are to fire on orders from the Archangel."

"Battle-group responding"

"Entering optimal firing range in ten seconds." Stated Hudson from the tactical station.

Cutter waited, as the seconds appeared to stretch into years as they slowly ticked away, and he could have sworn that those ten seconds were the longest of his life.

"The Prometheans have opened fire." Announced colonel Wildhorse from the tactical plot table as the ship shock as a beam from the type three warship collide with the armour of the Archangel. "The armour is down by five percent, but its regenerating."

"Looks like the egg-heads at R&amp;D did their job." Stated Hudson.

Cutter nodded as he looked down at the small holo-screen built into the command chair. The other elements of the combined fleet were even now reverting from hyperspace to engage the Promethean forces from multiple vectors. Again these elements were sphere-headed by as many of the upgraded and advanced ships of the Macross Fleet as was possible with both Republic and imperial forces sweeping around the Macross Fleet ships to allow them to unleash a Macross missile massacre strike.

"Let's not give them a chance to adapt. Target pre-set co-ordinates Alpha and open fire all ships."

From all around the ship, at the primary missile launch points and from the Destroid's a volley of two thousand Korinthos proton missiles launched followed by six high powered shots from the main Gottfried cannons. The other Macross fleet ships followed suit as the stealthed units dropped their cloaks, unleashing an incredible volley of disrupter and smart drones. All of the combined fleet then fried at the exact same location that they had targeted with their missiles and torpedoes with Gottfried's and ion cannons.

The type three warship shook at the amount of fire power which impacted it. The damage it caused left a massive crater into the massive ship, which could clearly be seen on the bridge of the Archangel.

"Target ship has suffered massive damage at the targeted location. Internal power levels have dropped by sixty percent, it's trying to withdraw."

"Let's not give them a chance, concentrate fire on that ship, target secondary locations which command sent us. Order all ships to concentrate fire on that ship."

The ship shook again as both of the type six warships opened fire with their own enhanced beam weapons on the Archangel.

"Armour is down to seventy-five percent. It seems that those warships are using the sheer power in the weapons in an attempt to counter the adaptations to the armour grid." Reported the ships senior pilot major April 'Ice Queen' O'Neill from the flight operations station.

"Well then, let's not give them too long to do that. Commander Hudson, order all of the armoured units to use attack patter Gloval three. All other units are to go full evasive." Ordered Cutter as the ship continued to shake under the fire that the Prometheans.

"Targeted ships power is down seventy-five percent, I'm reading massive secondary explosions."

"Commander, if you please…" asked Cutter looking over at Hudson, which caused him to smiled viciously as the helm turned the Archangel's bow directly towards the heavily damaged warship as he released a full salvo of neidhart anti-battle station torpedoes directly into the damaged section of the type three warship.

Two of the Imperial conquer class heavy battlecruisers also fired on the damaged Promethean warships adding to the massive amount of fire power heading toward the doomed warship.

The warship shuddered, and seemed to move backwards, as its reactor cores where destroyed from the massive amount of fire launched at it, but in its dying breath it managed to destroy three Laurasia class before snagging an Imperial A-type and an Republic Mars class and dragging them close enough so that they were destroyed as the warship exploded.

In retaliation, the two remaining type six warships vaporised seven more ships from the allied assault force.

"Deculture, were the hell is the rest of the fleet?" muttered the young crewmember at one of the comm-scan stations.

As if in answer to the plea, the rest of the fleet, some three thousand ships, including ten Macross III class supper dreadnoughts, reverted from hyperspace and launched a devastating alpha strike package.

"Admiral, orders from the Manta, our task force is to pull back to mobile position one and regroup ASAP." Stated master chief Thomas Brown, as he manned the main communications console.

"Acknowledge the orders and transmit them to the remaining ships. Then get me a brief damage report." Said Cutter.

"Nothing major, we're down too…" Hudson stopped as something on the scanners caught his attention. "Deculture! Sir, I'm detecting a massive disturbance in sub-space!"

"What kind?" Asked Cutter and Hunter together, both having a really, really sick feeling that they didn't want to know the answer to the question.

"I'm not sure, however it has very close characteristics to that of the Promethean hyperspace windows."

"Get me the Manta!" Cutter almost screamed the order through his clenched teeth.

"Too late!"

The crew watched in horror as a newer, and much larger contingent of Promethean warships exited from the maw of the massive vortex.

"How many?" Cutter asked in a whisper as he stood slowly from his command chair.

"Sensors show thirty type five warships, sixty destroyers, five Grave class, ten type nine warships and two Key class dreadnoughts."

Cutter walked towards the forward section of the command area of the bridge, as all around the Archangel ships exploded left and right as the massive Promethean armada began their true assault. "By the maker, this isn't an attack. It's an invasion."

-{[]}-

The Archangel shook again as another Promethean disruptor beam attempted to penetrate her armour.

"Armour is down to twenty-five percent, plus we've only got fifty Korinthos and ten neidhart torpedo's left, admiral. The linear cannons are off-line and the Destroids have had to fall back due to all of their ammunition being expended."

Cutter nodded grimly, unwilling to turn to look at Hudson as that meant looking at the dead bodies of Hunter and an ensign from one of the remaining science stations. The casualty reports were mounting rapidly but at least they were still in the fight.

The rest of the fleet on the other hand…

… Well that was another natter, as another three ships exploded as they rammed a type ten warship. It was starting to get desperate as the Promethean armada was slowly advancing towards Athos. They had tried for Lantea but the planetary defence system had torn through them enough to make them extremely wary of being trapped between it and the allied fleet.

Never the less, the fleet was struggling.

Of the initial three thousand and fifty vessels, over one thousand were gone, the rest, including the Archangel, were suffering moderate to heavy damage.

The Prometheans, well they still had twenty warships, nine of their type ten's and a single of their key class dreadnoughts.

The ship rung like a bell as a nearby warship continued to pursue them.

"Where the devil are our escorts?" Demanded Cutter gripping the arm-rest on his command chair for dear life.

"We've only four left, the Blood Haze, two Daedalus class and that Eternal class from that contractor Sandline Galactic." Answered Brown as a medic tried to get him to stand still to treat a gash on his left arm.

Cutter cursed again. The Prometheans were systematically targeting all of the advanced and armoured ships in the fleet, and doing a bloody fine job of it too, and as far as Cutter could tell their where only five such ships left, and the Archangel seemed to be the only one that was in fairly good condition.

"Ask the admiral again…"

Brown nodded as he tried to contact the fleet command ship, "Sir, the Manta's gone, as well as the ESMF Red Venom, Melbourne and Trafalgar."

Cutter swivelled to look at Brown, all four of the ESUN senior admirals were gone. "Who's in charge?"

Brown shrugged. "The Imperial command ships are gone and the Starscream just rammed a type ten warship."

Even the allied admirals were gone, and without a flagship the combined fleet would struggle to survive for much longer, though even with a senior admiral, Cutter suspected that they wouldn't last till the 4th and 5th fleets lead by the ESMF Macross–E, arrived in less than an hour.

"Send to all ships, I'm authorizing the use of the new trans-phasic drone torpedoes. If any ship have them and are far enough away from either planet, use them. I'll deal with high-command if and when we make it through this alive."

Brown nodded while he transmitted the message to the remaining Macross fleet ships. "Sir, our escorts are inquiring about the new weapons."

"On screen." On the main tactical display the image of Atriums, a Republic black and the captain of the Sandline Galactic vessel appeared. "Gents, how's your day going?" Atriums rolled his eyes at the joke, the fallen support beam and the fire being dealt behind him told the story well enough. The other two commander's merely laughed.

"We're going to use an experimental weapon on the Prometheans, I'll need you to launch a strafing run to allow us time to close in and fire."

The three men merely nodded as the closed their respective comm-links.

"Newmann, set course for the nearest type ten, Hudson once we have a clear shot and the escorts are out of the kill zone feel free to clear my sky of these cybernetic freaks." Both officers nodded as the mighty type two battlefortress turned towards it pursuer.

While the Archangel completed her turn, the allied ships strafed between the two vessels, but the Prometheans treated the as if they were flies, literally swatting aside an Imperial Daedalus class, which collided with the warship, shattering the outer hull.

"Target that explosion and fire!"

Everyone on the bridge watched with baited breath and in morbid fascination as the two advanced battle station assault weapons leaped across the gap between the two warships.

They could scarcely believe their eyes as the warheads actually passed through the warships shields and actually entered the small moon sized warship. A second later two truly massive explosions occurred deep within the ship, forcing it to shudder to a halt.

"Power levels are down by nearly seventy percent." Announce Brown.

"Once more," ordered Cutter as two more of the drones leapt towards the heavily damage Promethean warship, which tried to shoot down the highly advanced death shots which were closing to kill it.

As the second pair of explosions took place deep within the Promethean vessel it suddenly accelerated towards the Archangel.

"EVAD!" Ordered Hudson, recognizing what the Prometheans were planning before Cutter did.

Cutter barely managed to hold onto his seat and could only watch in horror as chief Brown went flying past him before hitting the forward bulkhead with a sickening thud near him.

"Target destroyed." Stated Hudson, as he re-routed the operations systems to his console. "Sir, I'm reading an engine core breach on the Blood Haze."

"Evacuate as many of the crew as you can with the transporters, but get us clear before they blow." Cutter ordered as he stood and walked towards the body of Brown, to confirm if he was dead or if there was a chance to save him. A quick check for a pulse told him all he needed to know, but he pulled the body away from the helm.

"How you holding up Meer?" he asked the young, and freshly minted, ensign Campbell. She had only joined the crew at the last re-supply, and was less than six months out of the Robotech academy. He suspected that there was something going on between her and Hudson, but they were both officers, and he hoped that if they survived this they would get the chance to talk and see.

Campbell looked up at the admiral. "Fine sir, but all things considered I'd much rather be on Heliopolis station enjoying some R&amp;R." She said as she smiled weakly to try and reassume him, but her eyes told him the truth.

Cutter nodded in agreement as the entry hatch opened to allow sub-commander Dvorak and a member of the ships Special Forces, Devil Squad land op's specialist ensign Jake Rockwell if he was right, walked onto the bridge. "Atriums?" he asked.

Dvorak shook her head as she turned and walked over towards Hudson at the tactical station, and whispered something to him, before turning to face Cutter.

"He died during the last attack, thank-you for trying to save us, I fear however that it won't mean much in the grand scheme of things."

Cutter gave her a sad smile as he lowered himself back into the command chair. "How are we doing Kira?"

"We're down to fifteen percent on the armour, though it is slowly regenerating. Shields and pin-points are ready, but they won't last long in this shit storm. Gottfried's are at twenty-five percent, linear cannons, destroids and Valliant's are all out of action, due to their ammunition being expended plus we've only got fifty Korinthos and ten neidhart torpedo's left, and we're down to sixteen of those new battle-station buster drones left."

"I guess that some of the Big M's luck is rubbing off on us," muttered Cutter, "Where are the Promethean's?"

"Five warships, three are type ten, eta is under a minute, sir."

"Reinforcements?"

"None in range sir, the ESMF Macross and her battle-group are still five minutes out."

Cutter stood and walked to the helm and rested his hands on the back of both the pilot and co-pilot seats. "Very well, bring us about straight down their throats. If were going down, then I for one intend to take as many of those cybernetic freaky sons of bitches with me to Ne'Tu as I can."

"Aye sir." Came the enthusiastic reply. "Course programed in, ready to execute on your command admiral."

"Let's storm the gates of hell," he said as he turned and looked at the tactical station. "Command and sub-commander, I want you to make every shot count, clear those cybernetic freaks out of my sky!"

Both commanders, replied with an animalistic and evil smile, "By your command." Stated Dvorak.

"As they say 'who wants to live forever.'" Hudson said, as he placed his hand on Dvorak's.

Cutter smiled too, the strange mood that made him prodder than he had ever been of this ship and the crew, "I much prefer the line from Shakespeare's Henry the fifth, 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more'," He said as he looked around the bridge, and the few faces left nodded solemnly to each other in turn, even the senior pilot major April 'Ice Queen' O'Neill. "Very well, we have an appointment to keep, let's not keep them waiting then shall we."

In an act of both pure defiance, and that belittled its massive size, the wounded ESMF Archangel turned and closed on the massive forms of the incoming Promethean warships.

"Divert all power to the forward shields, pin-points and armour, hell take it from both the reflex cannon and life support, somehow I doubt we will be needing it where we're heading…" he left the rest of the statement unsaid to hang in the air, and air that was soaked in the smell of death and destruction.

"Oh how nice, they are lining up for us." Stated Dvorak somewhat jovially and somehow very familiar with Macross fleet controls and consoles.

"Well then let's not disappoint our hosts Kira, if you be so kind as to let them know that we are here." Ordered Cutter.

From the remaining missile and torpedo tubes the last of the Archangel's anti-battle station neidhart torpedoes launched in a massive Macross missile massacre which impacted the central most warship as tracer fire and Gottfried cannon fire concentrated on the same point.

As the missile and torpedo tubes where reloaded for a second strike using the new drones, the sole remaining bridge science officer ensign Zefram 'Zee' Cochrane shouted out, "Admiral, I've got a sub-space disturbance forming at location yellow alpha three. It's amazing!"

"We'll look at it later ensign," answered Cutter angrily, "Fire trans-phasic drones."

"Wait!" Screamed Cochrane, but it was too late.

As the full volley of ten of the highly advanced drone weapons burst forth from the Archangel, all targeting the three most central most warships of the approaching formation.

The eight drones which were fired at the two warships which were off-centre, travelled and slammed into their targets at ninety-nine percent the speed of light, shattering the massive warships and managing to take out the three remaining warships with secondary explosions.

However the crew of the Archangel never saw this sight, as the two drones which had been aimed at the central most warship collided with the sub-space disturbance and detonated within. Before the bridge crew could even react, a massive wave of sub-space energy was released from within the deepest reaches of the mysterious regions of sub-space and enveloped the mighty Macross type two class battlefortress.

When the energy wave had dissipated, and the residual sensor interference from the simultaneous destruction of the five warships had died down, all that was detected by the Macross-E's battle group, the allies and the Promethean forces was that the ESMF Archangel had been destroyed in a last and valiant act of pure defiance.


	3. Chapter 02: Picking up the Pieces

**Chapter 02: Picking up the Pieces**

Kira Hudson groaned as he pulled himself up, using the side of his console to help him as his right leg was shattered just above his ankle. "Erg, did anyone catch the number of that warship?"

"I don't know, but I think that it might be plastered onto the forward sectors of your main gun." Muttered Dvorak as she clutched onto her right shoulder, while lying on the floor next to the tactile station.

He reached down to help her to stand up, but as he did so he caused her to catch it on the edge of the console, making her grit her teeth to avoid screaming out with the pain that it caused her.

"Broken?" Hudson asked.

She nodded in the affirmative. "It sure feels like it." She took a quick look around at the damaged remains of the bridge, "However I think that I got off lightly compared to your ship though."

Hudson slowly cast his gaze over the damage on the bridge catching sight of the damage control board, till he saw the helm, "Meer!"

The form of the young ensign Campbell was slumped over the side of the co-pilots console unmoving, as Hudson used his own FN-P117 assault rifle as a makeshift crutch while he dragged himself down to check on her. Once he was close enough to her he reached over and checked for a pulse, muttering a small prayer when he thankfully found one. "Meer, are you alright?"

Groaning as she slowly came too, Campbell lifted her head and looked up at Hudson through a blood soaked face from a cut above her left eye. "Kir… Kira? What the hell happened?"

"We survived, but beyond that…" he said as he turned and saw that both Rockwell and Cochrane where checking on the admiral, who was lay un-moving on the deck plating in front of his chair. Seeing this Hudson reached across Campbell and pressed the intercom controls on the central column between her and lieutenant Newman in the primary helm location.

"Sickbay, this is the bridge, we need a medical party up here a.s.a.p." There was no reply. "Sickbay?"

"Sorry sir, we're trying to pick up the pieces down here." Came the static filled voice of doctor Morse.

"Kirsty, where's doctor Fallion?"

"Dead commander. Along with most of the staff and some of the patients. I'm transferring doctor Smith up to the bridge now. I've been getting sporadic reports from all over the ship. How bad is it up there?"

"Bad. The admiral's down, we will need a medical party up here to collect him as I have a hunch that the transporters are down."

Kirsty Morse harrumphed in agreement. "Wouldn't be against it. I'll get back to you as soon as we get everything sorted out down here. Sickbay out."

Hudson turned to face the wreck that used to be the bridge of the Archangel. "Ok, could someone activate doctor Smith program."

A few seconds later and a swift kick of a console later the holographic form of doctor Joe Smith appeared, "Please state the nature of …" doctor Smith trailed off as he saw the destruction that was all around him, "What on earth happened up here?" he asked as he knelt down next to Cutter opening the emergency medical kit nearby.

The remaining bridge crew shared a look with Hudson before the commander answered. "We sort of got into a little bit of a fight."

"Indeed, and just who did we decide to pick a fight with this time?" Asked Smith as he studied the readings on his medical scanner.

"The Prometheans." Everyone answered at the same time.

Smith looked up from his examination of the admiral with a hint of shock and concern, "Really? Well then, I'm surprised that you're not all dead or worse…"

Hudson laughed, but stopped after a sharp pain shot through his right side. "You and me both doc, you and me both." He said as he looked back over towards his station where sub-commander Dvorak was, "Speaking of which…"

She nodded and accessed the ships external scanner, but just had to stare at the readings even after running the scans three more times. "That… that can't be right."

"What?"

"Well according to those readings there are zero starships within scanner range."

"WHAT!" Everyone that heard asked.

"That's what these ESMF scanners of yours are saying."

"On screen."

Karina gave a small futile laugh as she pointed at the damaged view screen. "I'm good but I'm not a miracle worker."

Hudson pinched the bridge of his nose at the bad joke as he turned to look at the view screen, or what was left of it as a support pylon that had fallen from the overhead lighting sector and smashed down through the lights and straight into the screen, thank-fully the fallen beam hadn't pierced the forward hull bulkhead.

"Ok, let's forget that idea and stick it on the repair list."

"At what number?" Asked a groggy ensign Rockwell as he removed his helmet and looked at the damage control board which was a wash of red, orange and yellow. "Two hundred twenty seven, or three thousand and forty nine sir."

Hudson gave the land operations specialist a cold hard stare before saying, "Very funny Rocky."

Campbell looked up from her co-pilots seat, after pulling up the damage control board on her console. "Who's kidding, looking at this there are close to five thousand reports that need fixing, and that's not counting the lack of any ships outside."

Hudson looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "Well on the bright side at least there's no Promethean Knights aboard the ship."

He wasn't sure which hit him first, Campbell's hand as she slapped his side or the pieces of debris which was thrown at him by Rockwell and Dvorak. "Erm, did I just say that?" He asked.

As if on cue, the hatch to the bridge cracked open part way, causing every abled bodied person to take aim at the entry hatchway.

"Is anyone still alive in there?" Came the voice from the other side of the hatchway.

Dvorak, Campbell, Rockwell and Newmann all fixed Hudson with a stare so cold that the vacuum of space was warmer as they holstered their weapons.

"This is commander Hudson, who's that?"

"Lieutenant Welsh sir. I've got an imperial officer here with me, Optio Granger."

Dvorak lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose for a second before looking over at Hudson and mouthing, "Imperial intel."

Hudson tilted his head and tapped his personal assault rifle. Dvorak smirked as she considered the suggestion for a brief moment, before turning to help Rockwell, Welsh and Granger with the hatch.

Hudson left them too it and pressed the intercom once more. "Bridge to engineering, please respond."

"This is major Murdoch, am I to assume that both admiral Cutter and commodore Hunter are incapacitated?"

Hudson groaned lightly while muttering, "Why did that guy have to be the one that answered." Before speaking a little louder, "The admiral is down and commodore Hunter is dead along with several other crew members. What's the status down there?"

"Where to begin sir. Half of the engineering crew are dead, including colonel Tracy. The other half is busy repairing all of the problems which are present here in engineering. The drive core is off-line, reflex reactors have scrammed, but the emergency Helium three generators are working for now. I would highly recommend that you do not move the ship until we have had time to examine all of the components in the engines. So if you would be so kind as to ask the Prometheans not to attack us for the next six point seven-five days, I and the remaining engineering staff would be extremely appreciated."

Hudson looked at the view screen, or rather the remains of it and tried not to laugh. "Well it looks like we have lost everyone for the moment."

"Indeed. Well as long as you can refrain from any of your usual antics commander, I may just be able to get us to a fleet-station for repair."

The bridge crew all tried, unsuccessfully to hide their smirks at the remarks from the Trojan officer.

"I'm sure that I can keep from picking a fight for the next week or so major." Growled Hudson through gritted teeth. "Can you please tell me what is working?"

"Not much sir. I believe that the fighter and destroid wings and other auxiliary craft are still intact on both flight decks, but I will dispatch a detail to them once the proceeding one hundred and thirty more critical repairs have been completed."

Resisting the urge to go down to engineering and punch the smug ass through an air lock for stating the obviousness of the situation. "Ok, can you tell me what is working?"

"Not much I'm afraid, life support but just barely, the emergency synthesizers and the nanolathes, however I'm afraid not much else. In fact the only major system which appears to be working within acceptable normal levels are the linear cannons and the transporters."

"You're got to be fucking kidding!" Muttered Rockwell as the hatch finally opened, earning him a sharp look from Hudson.

"You have got to be joking!" Said Hudson, smirking pinching the bridge of his nose, as the bridge crew survivors started to snigger.

"Trojan's do NOT 'joke' commander, now if there is nothing else sir, I must get back to repairing the ship." Replied Murdoch and closed the comm-link without waiting for a reply.

"The transporters?" Muttered Campbell, before breaking out in a fit of laughter with Newmann, Rockwell, Cochrane and Hudson. "Will wonders never cease."

"I agree." Said Hudson as he turned to face Dvorak, Rockwell, Campbell, Welsh and Granger. "Right, it seems that we've finally gotten a break. Once engineering has confirmed that the transporters are working safely, we'll beam the admiral down to sickbay and then doc we'll transfer you back down there, after you've treated us. We need to work how many of the crew are left. Welsh take Granger and Rockwell and conduct a deck by deck search, or as best as you can. I want you to check every room, crawl-way, maintenance tube and storage space, make sure you locate everyone and that we don't have any 'stowaways' aboard."

Welsh and Rockwell nodded replacing their helmets while Granger saluted Dvorak before following.

Hudson limped back to his station, catching sight of his friend and the ships forth in command colonel David Wildhorse pinned to the deck by a support frame.

"Sub-commander, for the time being I'm making you my executive officer. I need you to co-ordinate with the rest of the ship and get me a full damage report a.s.a.p." Dvorak nodded and started to us the controls on the tactical station like a natural ESMF officer.

'_I'll have to ask her about that later_', Hudson thought to himself as he turned back to face Campbell and ensign Cochrane, "Ensigns, I need you to get in contact with someone. Macross fleet command, Zodiac control, Imperial Star Command, hell I'll take Triolian high council or some Decepticon pirates just not the Prometheans, also try to work where the frack we are."

The two young ensigns both nodded and got to work using the helm controls at the co-pilots station.

Hudson looked down at the tactical console and the combat readiness status of the mighty battlefortress or rather the lack there of. "Me. I'll see if I can't find us something, just in case we need to fight any passing ships."

-{[]}-

Several hours later Hudson pushed some of the small debris off of the table in the main observation lounge just behind the bridge and settled into his normal chair, as the door to the lounge opened and the pair of crewman left carrying a support beam between them.

He wasn't exactly comfortable doing this as technically admiral Cutter was still in command, but with him down in sickbay along with his prognosis being critical, he was left with no choice.

He glanced at the doorway as it opened again and the rest of the surviving senior staff filled in and took a seat around the table.

"Ok, let's see what we have left that we can work with, so firstly how many of the crew survived?"

The first person to speak up was the senior most doctor, a Brit named Kirsty Morse. "We've lost two hundred and three crew members, including commodore Hunter, lieutenant colonels Wildhorse and Tracy as well as Doctor's Fallion and Jackson. I've also got another seventy-five in or around the medical facilities, with about half of them in intensive care, including the admiral."

"Add to that the fifty members of my surviving crew in the barracks on deck six, and the twenty-five in its infirmary as well." Stated Dvorak, "Those that are able to have been assisting with the repairs, yet we have been denied access to several locations for obvious reasons." She said as she giving and lieutenant Welsh the CO of Devil squad the ships special operations force.

"Well we do have a few secretes on board," muttered Welsh, the acting tactical officer gaining a few chuckles from the rest of the room.

"Alright, what about main power?"

"Both the reflex reactors and the drive core are still off-line, as I indicated earlier it will take at least a standard week before it is safe for an attempt a low power re-start."

"So we have no way of reaching any support?"

Murdoch, the senior most engineer left down in engineering so had been promoted to the de-facto chief of engineering tilted his head slightly before answering. "As a matter of fact we do. The two hanger decks on both ARMD cruisers took a little damage, but all of the Falcon's, Argo's, the two squadrons of Thunderbolts mark seven veritech fighters, five of the ESINT recon units and all of the Ghost fighter drones which are in an acceptable condition. The rest have been designated for spare parts, at least until we are able to reach a fleet station. Plus, rather incredibly all ten of the work-bees and the destroid force, are still useable. I've currently got my people and the hanger crew's giving them a full level one inspection before they take them out to carry out a level one check of the hull. I will have that report to you in four hours."

Hudson nodded, he was thankful that most of their air wing and destroid force was still intact. There had been no point in deploying them when they had been engaging the Prometheans, so both the Destroid crews and Thunderbolt pilots had been forced to shake, rattle and roll with the rest of the ship during the fight over Lantea.

"Ok, CAG get the ESINT's out there and do some recon of the system we're in." He said to major April 'Ice Queen' O'Neill the senior most pilot as he turned to face Campbell and the science officer, ensign Zefram 'Zee' Cochran.

"Umm, where are we exactly?"

The two young ensigns shared a look, a look filled with pain before Cochrane answered the question poised.

"Actually sir… we're in the Lantea system."

"So where's the empire?" Asked Dvorak.

"It's not there," answered Cochrane as he nervously played with his played with his hands, not liking the piercing look that the Imperial officer was giving him. "as far as we can tell, no one has ever lived on the surface of this Lantea Alpha and Beta's surface was destroyed around five to a ten million years ago by an orbital bombardment that makes the 'Rain of Death' look like a light shower."

Dvorak looked down sadly at the table as she digested the news and pondered how she was going to inform the surviving members of her crew.

"What about Macross fleet command?" Asked O'Neill, "Or Zodiac control?"

Campbell shook her head sadly, "I'm afraid I'm getting absolutely nothing on either on fleet-command or civilian channel, Imperial channels or Zodiac frequencies. Hell, I haven't gotten any sub-space signals at all, there seems to be a large amount of background radiometric interference from a totally unknown dimension of sup-space and an unusually high level of beta particles across all of the sub-space channels."

"Okay, well for the moment we're on our own then." Stated Hudson as he looked at each person in turn.

"Erm sir, I'm afraid that it gets worse…" Stated Cochrane as everyone within the observation lounge turned to face him and not enjoying the looks that he was catching off his crewmates, from that short statement. "I've… I have run a stellar check while I was calculating our current location and while most of the known astrological location markers are accounted for, there are a few problems."

"Such as?" Asked Hudson.

Cochrane swallowed hard as he used the controls on the table in front of him to activate the view screen at the back of the room with a star chart that showed the main astrological markers for both the alpha and beta quadrants. "This is the charts as they were just before we, for lack of a better term vanished." He said as several of the stars and nebular flashed blue. "And these are those same markers as close as we can find them now."

On the screen a second set of stars and nebular flashed red, all of them where close to their original locations, but none of them where in the correct place.

"Have you managed to figure out why so many of markers are out of place?"

"Stellar drift sir."

"Wait, wait. Would some someone please tell me what '_stellar drift_' is?" Asked doctor Morse.

"Sorry doc, to put it simply, it's a natural occurrence where stars are slowly moving away from each other, so I had the computer run an analysis to work out why the markers where out of alignment."

He paused as he activated the controls again to manipulate the maps on the screen so that they merged and the majority of the stars to match up and turn purple as they matched their normal positions, though there were some which stubbornly still refused to move into more predictable locations.

"And?" Promoted Morse.

"Well, the best reason that both Meer and myself could get from the results was that the local date was incorrect. All the data we have would suggest that the local date is somewhere around the late 20th century, maybe the early 21st century."

"They 20th century?" Asked everyone after a few seconds.

Cochrane shrugged. "Give or take ten years." The young ensign waited for all of the resulting emotions to settle down before he continued with his report. "I am afraid that it goes from bad to worse, commander. According to the quantum scans we've taken of the local stellar objects within sensor range, we appear to have not only moved through time but we have also left our own quantum universe."

"WHAT!" Screamed major O'Neill as thee staff meeting went from a normal quiet and controlled setting to a complete and utter mayhem.

Hudson buried his head on the table while the others all shouted and caused in angry disbelief. How where they get home, was that even going to be an option? Should they even try and find help within this strange and new universe? This was so far from anything that he had been taught him by his mentor admiral Ramius back when he was just a colonel serving as the executive officer on the ESMF Interceptor it wasn't even remotely funny.

He sighed and lifted his head up, taking in the very despondent looks of his fellow officers. "Okay people, it would appear that we are up that infamous creak without a paddle, and I have a feeling that we have sprung more than one leak."

It may have been a very bad joke, but somehow it seemed to work as the whole room chuckled and released some of the tension in the room.

"So the question is how do we go about figuring out the local political setup?" He left the statement hanging hoping that someone, anyone else, might have an idea or two.

"Commander, I don't believe that we can." Stated Murdoch as he took a sip of his raktajino. "To do so would be a violation of the shield directive zero-zero-one."

"Ah, that famous SD 001," muttered Dvorak sarcastically with air quotes.

"Indeed sub-commander," Murdoch said, choosing to ignore the Imperial officer's remarks. "we cannot afford to interfere in the development of the local political make up for this galaxy. Though I am unsure if it would be worse if this is a universe with or without an Earth Sphere Unified Nation."

"It wouldn't apply if the locals are a spacefaring species though." Said ensign Campbell meekly.

"Actually Ms Campbell, it does. If we have any technology which could upset the local balance of power, then we are duty bound to avoid any and all interference in the local political situation."

"That is realpolitik. The Macross fleet and the ESUN just love to stick your collective nose into anything you can, whenever you can."

"I think," stated Hudson, trying to cut off any reply from Murdoch which the engineer was probable forming in response. "I think that, for the time being, we place the discussion of SD 001 on the back burner for now, and concentrate on the more immediate situation."

He stood up and turned to look out the window at the back of the observation lounge.

"At this moment we're half blind, on secondary power and have next to no weapons. Therefore we need to repair the ship and set up some form of early warning system in the nearby star-systems." He turned back to face the rest of the room before addressing Murdoch directly.

"Major, I'll need you to send me a full and detailed damage report as soon as you and your engineering teams can, and for once feel free to be as detailed as you can."

Murdoch nodded, ignoring the slight about the Trojan comprehensiveness. "Yes sir. I'll have it to you as soon as I can."

"Ensigns and sub-commander Dvorak, I want you three to work with major O'Neill to pick viable locations in the surrounding systems and arrange for the deployment of ESINT equipped Thunderbolt's and an escort to scout them out, also CAG launch four Thunderbolt's with full F.A.S.T. packs and Ghost fighter escorts, as a combat air patrol."

"A C.A.P.?" Asked O'Neill disbelievingly.

"I'm afraid so, without the long or mid-range sensors coupled with the near total lack of power we've got at the moment we will need them to be our eyes and ears, and heaven forbid, our sword and shield as well."

"Understood sir." Said O'Neill with a slight nod, and started typing out a CAP rotation on her PADD.

Hudson glanced down at his own PADD before he looked around the room. "Ok, anything else you can think of people."

"Personal effects in the crew quarters sir?" Welsh said, obviously not entirely comfortable with this subject, but feeling that the subject needed to be discussed. "As major Sisko's teams are searching, they keep discovering a lot of personal effects, and I've been asked what to do with them by him a few times now sir."

"I'd suggest one of the smaller cargo decks sir." Suggested Campbell. "We could use it as a place of remembrance."

The others all nodded in agreement at the idea, it wasn't a very pretty thought but they'd need somewhere to grieve for their lost friends and colleagues provided that they lived long enough in this new universe to be able to do so.

"Do it. As for the rest of the stuff two groups. Group one will be things that seem to have sentimental value but no real use, as for the other group of things shall be stored in a secondary location, we can work out what we'll actually do with those two groups later." Hudson said as he scanned the faces of everyone in the room. "Alright, if there's nothing else, let's get back to work, I'd like the ship fixed before the admiral gets out of sickbay."

The group stood and left to return to their duties, all except Dvorak who stood and walked over to stand next to Hudson as he looked out the window towards the lifeless form of the planet Lantea Beta.

Hudson tried to give her a poker face smile, "Well, the recruitment poster did say '_Explore strange new worlds and meet new and exciting people_'."

Dvorak laughed an honest and pure laugh and Hudson felt better than he had in a very, very long time for hearing it. "Sometimes Kira you are beyond infuriating and at others…" she said as she leaned over so she could whisper into his ear slightly more easily, "… I would swear you're a Lantean and would want to pursue you." She kissed him gently on the cheek, then turned and left the observation lounge quickly before he had any opportunity to get his bearings once again.

Hudson watched her walk out as the doors to the main observation room closed behind her, while he sat back down in the first chair he came to.

"Why is it that I always have to fall for the ones which are unattainable ones?" He muttered to himself with a rare smile.

Since everything appeared to be going smoothly, and that there was nothing else planned for the next few hours he decided to catch a quick rest, but after opening his uniform tunic and easing back into the chair, he collapsed into a deep sleep.


	4. Chapter 03: Signs of Life

**Chapter 03: Signs of Life**

Sub-commander Dvorak of the Hansa Imperial Star Empire stood at the situation table at the rear of the still slightly damaged main bridge of the Archangel, and found herself continually trying not to laugh at the situation.

Through some galactic twist of fate, she had found herself as the acting first officer on a Macross Fleet SDF class battlefortress, and to make it even more interesting the ship and all those aboard were trapped in another universe, a universe which didn't have either a Earth Sphere Unified Nation or the Hansa Imperial Empire.

She knew that the remains of the crew from her own ship, the ISC Blood Haze survivors all seventy five of them, were dealing with the news about their location as well as she could hope for, but still better than most of the Archangel's crew, but even for a supposedly weaker species, they were coping well.

Although she highly suspected that the current need to repair the ship was taking priority over their own personal feelings for the time being, and that soon a high number of the crews compliment, both Imperial and Macross Fleeter alike, would need to make use of the ships trained psychiatrists.

Still, if through some miracle they did manage to make it back, she and the rest of the Imperial personal would be able to give one hell of a report to the Imperial high command on the internal workings of the type two SDF Macross class battlefortress and the Thunderbolt mark seven veritech transformable fighter-interceptor, the latest generation of the legendary veritech fighter-interceptor and counter to the Imperial's own Talon and Raptor fighters.

"Griffon flight has just entered sensor range, sub-commander." Reported the gunnery-chief who was manning the partially re-built flight operations station just left of her post at the situation table.

"Understood, have them transmit their sensor logs and flight data then clear them for landing and refuelling operations. I'm sure that major O'Neill will have a new set of patrol vectors for them soon enough."

"Aye ma'am."

Dvorak was impressed with the behaviour and the professionalism of the Archangel's crew, a compliment to their commanding officer. While she knew nothing of admiral Cutter beyond his name, her former commander Prefectus Atriums had spoken extremely highly of the man, and she could see that he was an excellent leader from the behaviour of his crew.

She scanned the report as it came in before she forwarded it off to Hudson, who was holed up in the observation lounge. His decision not to use either the admiral's flag-suit or the ships ready room was something she would've done herself if the situation had been reversed, but it was something which she had come to expect of him.

She paused in her skimming of the report as something caught her eye. She brought up the attached image files for that section of the report and stared at the first image in curiosity.

A large metallic circle on the surface of the planet that they were in orbit of. It was around seven meters tall and surrounded by ruins made of the metallic material and some evidence of orbital bombardment.

If it hadn't been for a purely random even, then the purpose of the structure would have remained a complete unknown, but while Griffon flight had been conducting scans on the area surrounding the ruins for Trinium and other materials which would be useful for the ship to help with the repairs, when an energy spike which had registered almost off the scales, had been detected from the structure.

The sensors in the ESINT pack had showed that the structure had released a huge amount of unstable verteron radiation which had settled down into a highly stable wormhole, from which the crews of Griffon flight had detected a small drone of some kind emerging.

The crew's had discreetly used their own scanners to scan the probe. They had found that it was a strange mix of both high and low levels of technology, but that most of the scanners where directed towards scanning the area within five kilometres of the structure.

Dvorak looked over the information and data about the structure and the alien probe once more, as for some reason this information seemed familiar to her.

"Flight, take over." She ordered as she downloaded the information to a PADD, before she turned and headed towards the observation lounge to talk with Hudson about this latest development.

-{[]}-

At the same time that Dvorak was looking at the report from Griffon flight on the bridge, doctor Morse was looking around the main ward of the ships main sickbay, and as much as she hated to admit it, but without the help of doctor Smith, even if he was a hologram, was a really great help. She was sure that without his help, she or another of the now limited number of ships doctors, would have made a mistake which would have cost them the life of someone.

With the immediate crisis dealt with, and none of the current patients where in need of any life-saving procedures, she had dismissed most of the medical staff with orders to catch at least five hours of sleep. Morse herself, was up to her neck in medical reports, for the admiral and the others who were still in critical condition.

She'd been in the operating room with the admiral alone for the last ten hours, and by some miracle and a hell of a lot of luck, she had somehow managed to stabilise him, but for some unknown reason he and the other critical cases were slowly slipping away, and there was nothing that she, or any of the other doctors, could do.

The admiral, like the other patients that were currently in the intensive care unit, were suffering from some kind of de-polarizing of their neural pathways, and with each passing hour there was one to two percent less registered neurological activity being detected in their individual brain scan's.

She had estimated that at their current comatose state they only had a month to six weeks before they were brain dead, and maybe three weeks of that time would they have enough cognitive ability left to actually talk, but giving the admiral or any of them a stimulant to bring them out of there comma's, it would increase their detrition and hasten their deaths.

She hated this feeling of complete uselessness, she had been training to become a doctor when her homeworld of Eden Prime had been invaded by the Disruptors back during the war. Back then she had come to know Hudson as he had been in charge of a small local resistance force, after his ship had been sunk in orbit while attempting to defend the planet, which had been operating the area of her colony so she had acted as the forces field medic even though she had only been a third year medical student at the time.

After the planet had been liberated by the combined forces of both the Alpha and Beta quadrant's, she had applied to the Macross academy as a medic. It wasn't until after she had graduated from the academies medical school and being assigned to the Archangel that she learnt that Hudson was also aboard and was the head of the ships security and third in command, with admiral Cutter being in overall command for the ships combined destroid, air-wing and MACO's.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves before she reached over her desk and lifted the intercom phone and punched in the four digit code for the bridge.

"Sickbay to bridge, I need for commander Hudson to come down to my office as soon as he can. It is concerning the admiral and the others in ICU."

"Copy doctor, I'll pass the message along to the commander." Came the reply from a still static filled comm-line, which was short meaning that it was probably one of the Trojans that had answered, and while she hated to place the weight of this kind of decision on his shoulders, it was a decision which was beyond her and went against her oath as a doctor, so she would leave it up to the commander and pray that he would be able to cope with it.

-{[]}-

Dvorak pressed the buzzer control on the controls for the observation lounge for the third time beginning to become concerned at the continued no answer from the other side of the hatch. Slightly worried as she opened the hatch as to what she would find as she carefully walked into the semi-dark lounge.

Sitting in the same seat he had used in the staff meeting several hours ago and fast asleep, with his head resting on his arms and his uniform tunic open to about half way and slumped forward onto the table.

She smiled, as she was glad that he was getting some rest, and while she was tired herself she also knew that she could go a little longer on just raktajino before she needed rest unlike her human counterpart, she also realised that the extra workload that had just landed on his shoulders like a destroid due to the admiral being in the ships ICU, coupled with the unknowns of the ship being in a completely unknown universe was a lot more than he was ever expecting to deal with.

She smiled once more as she closed the door and walked back onto the bridge, smiling while heading over to the co-pilots position at the helm and tapped Campbell lightly on the shoulder to get her attention,

"He's finally sleeping, make sure that he's not disturbed for the next few hours at least."

Campbell nodded gratefully as she complied with the order that she had just received.

Dvorak knew that both the young ensign she was next to and Hudson were close, and was mildly jealous towards the young ensign, not that she would ever admit it to anyone. Yet she did make a mental note to have a very long talk with Hudson about his relationship with the ensign just so that she knew where she stood with him.

She still secretly wished that the human commander had been born as a Lantean, then so many things would have been so much easier.

After their time that they had spent during the disruptor war, she had spent a full year as a guest of the Imperial High command, being analysed and scrutinized before they had finally allowed her to re-join the fleet on active duty, but she now had a chaperone in the form of that pompous ass of an executor Granger from the Imperial intelligence division.

The complications that she had suffered during that time as a guest of High Command hadn't helped, and thinking back on it now wasn't any easier. She wished that she could talk to Kira about what had happened, but she also knew that he would never understand.

Silently she circled around the damaged bridge, while the repair crew worked, making notes on her PADD as to the repair status of the different sections of the ship as she returned to her place at the situation table where she began to go through the latest reports which had accumulated and she needed to pass on to Hudson.

-{[]}-

Murdoch stared dispassionately at the sub-space drive core which took up all three levels of main engineering. The former chief engineer, lieutenant colonel Jeff Tracy, had been having an almost romantic relationship with the systems that made up the propulsion and energy production for the Archangel, but Murdoch couldn't understand how the man could have gotten so attached to the machines.

He turned away from the core as a senior chief petty officer came up to him carrying a PADD which had the latest status reports relating to the on-going repairs.

"Major, we've managed to get almost everything ready for a restart of both all reflex reactors and the drive core, we just need to run another series of stress tests on the anti-proton injectors and a few of reactor three's housing components."

"That's excellent work chief. How soon do you think that it will be until we can attempt the restart sequence?" Murdoch asked although he had already worked out the answer, but he felt that the chief had a lot of potential, so he tried to push him a little with every assignment.

"I'd say a few hours, six at the most sir."

"I believe that is an accurate assessment. I shall inform the commander that due to the efforts of you and your team we will be able to reactivate the main power systems before my original estimate. Carry on chief."

The chief petty officer smiled, accepting that it was as close to a compliment that he would get, as he turned to re-join his engineering team and grateful for the praise and glad to be doing something to help him to take his mind off of their current predicament.

-{[]}-

_Combat date 56477.5, commander Kira Hudson recording._

_It has been five days since our fight with the Prometheans in orbit of Lantea and our subsequent trans-dimensional jump and we are only now planning to commence a restart of our main power grid, though major Murdoch, the senior most engineer left, told me that it would take at least a full standard week before he and his engineering teams would be able to restart the mains, they appear to have performed a miracle as they have managed to get both the sub-space drive core and all eight of the reflex reactors back on-line a full two days ahead of schedule, and not a moment too soon as I think that everyone with the exception of specialist Osmond are sick to death of eating emergency field rations, since I've had to limit the use of the synthesizers and nano-lathes for the production of parts relating to repairing the ship while we have been surviving on the H 3 fuel cells and fusion generators._

_Thankfully both the destroid detachment and the air wing was relatively unaffected by either the battle with the Prometheans or the trans-dimensional jump so we have been scouting out the surrounding area with our ESINTs and ESINT equipped Thunderbolt fighters._

_It would appear however that we will be able to find useable resources nearby, most notable on the lifeless forms of both Lantea Alpha and Beta. Therefore I plan to order the ship cleaned and funerals to be held, then carry out a massive mining operation to fill cargo decks three, four and seven with raw materials._

_At present comm-scan has been unable to detect any form of sub-space signals on any channel of frequency that is common, well common to home, which has would seem to suggest that the locals of this universe use a completely different form of faster-than-light communications._

_One of our recon missions to a nearby system has detected several ships entering and exiting FTL from a type of sub-space rift which opens into a sub-dimension of sub-space which we suspect the locals use to achieve FTL speeds._

_The ships coming out of this 'hyperspace' as the pilots have begun to call it have been extremely strange. On the one hand the obviously have a form of FTL travel, but in normal space the ships we have observed are slow moving pyramids. We have seen several of these ships which range in size from a little larger than the Archangel's own Argo class multi-purpose transports up to something as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza, and yet from what we have seen they would appear to lack any form of shielding system or weapons but they do have an unusually large amount of heavy armour, but it is very primitive._

_The Archangel's own ablative armour would seem to be light-years ahead of what we have observed, and what we suspect that the local military forces may have also._

_Another of our recon teams have also detected a series of ruins on a planet in the next system over with a strange metallic ring which is capable of creating a completely stable wormhole within the gravity well of a planetary body._

_The limited number of scientist we have aboard are chomping at the bit to take an Argo down to the surface of the planet to investigate the device, but I have ordered them to wait until the ship is in a more presentable and battle ready condition._

_A few hours ago a clearly military ship came out of the locals form of FTL, again it was a pyramid shaped craft about half the size of the Archangel but it was even less efficient than a first generation ARMD class space carrier from before space war one, yet the energy readings it was generating are a cause for concern given our current condition, as a few well-placed shots would be a problem for us, yet given our almost completely comically lack of manoeuvrability at present I suspect that it would take ten to twenty ships of a similar type to even be a concern to us._

_Judging by the scans we made of the ship it would appear that these ships are constructed more along the lines of inflicting massive amounts of orbital bombardment than for actual capital ship engagements. Though if they have ships which are bigger and better equipped, then things could be interesting._

_Unfortunately, medical has reported that admiral Cutter and the others that are in critical condition have made no improvement and now I have to make a horrible choice. Allow them to slowly slip away over the next month, or give the go ahead to allow doctor Morse to give the admiral an injection which would allow him to be active and back in command, but it would mean that he will be dead within two weeks._

_I know what I would want to be done, so I hope that he agrees with my decision and I pray to whatever god or gods that exist that I am someday able to come to terms with what I have done._

-{[]}-

Cutter slowly opened his eyes, blinking rapidly at the soft lighting in the main ward of sickbay.

"Admiral, welcome back to the land of the living."

Slowly he turned his head and saw Hudson standing next to doctors Morse and Smith, that wasn't a good sign.

"Report commander." Asked Cutter with a slightly crusty voice.

Hudson handed over a PADD and gave the admiral a brief summary, talking with a slow and deliberately steady speech.

"Sir, just over two hundred of the ships compliment have died, with another thirty still in ICU. We have massive structural damage to all sectors of the ship which has resulted in main power being off-line for the last five days. The ships destroid detachment and air wing are in an acceptable condition with the exception for one of the Argo transports, which broke free of its docking cradle. I've had the CAG launch the ESINT's and several ESINT equipped Thunderbolts to perform a recon in force of our location with ghost fighters for support. We currently have seventy-five Imperial survivors on board and are being integrated into the crew to assist in none critical locations. Comm-scan has detected no ships, friendly or otherwise in the local system as we appear to be in a parallel dimension."

"Very good command…" Cutter dropped the PADD which he had been handed by Hudson and stared at him as if he was joking. "What did you just say commander?"

"Sir, we appear to be in a universe with a completely different quantum signature to our own."

"Macross fleet command?"

"Negative sir, we've had no communication on any known sub-space channel, except for that of our recon teams. As a precaution I've had the ships IFF and transponder deactivated. We have however detected several vessels in a nearby system, and we believe that the locals use a different form of communication to communicate with one another, however I have avoided initiating first contact until the ship was in a more presentable condition."

"That bad?"

"Worse."

Cutter sank back onto the bio-bed, the little amount of energy that he had managed to regain was draining from him fast.

"Ok, I'll read through your reports and then get back to you in an hour."

"Yes sir. Also doctors Morse and Smith have something which you need to hear, I'll leave now and when I return I will accept whatever punishment you decide."

"Very well commander, I'll let you get back to fixing the ship, get us ready as soon as you can."

Cutter watched as Hudson walked out of the sickbay, noticing how he was practically running from the medical centre of the ship, before turning to face the doctors that somehow magical started to pull a medical scanner from nowhere.

"So doctors what was so important that it has made the head of the ships security run like a scared recruit in their first fire-fight?"

-{[]}-

In a nearby star system, ensign Kelly 'Cobra' Kaplan looked down at the mission timer on the controls of her ESINT equipped Thunderbolt mark seven-B once more. They still had another five hours left for this patrol in this individual star system.

Since arriving in the system the pilots of Nemesis flight of Phoenix squadron had viewed the locals coming into the system via what the ships egg-heads where calling 'hyperspace'. The orders for Nemesis flight and the other ESINT flights, Dominion and Normandy, had changed from simple resource surveys and mineral scans, to passive long-ranged sweeps.

Commander Hudson had decided that it was safer to conduct these types of scans so that they could avoid any possible contact with any of the locals until they had the Archangel up to a decent level of both combat readiness and appearance.

"How we doing EA?"

EA, or specialist Ellen Anders, looked up from the scanner in the back of Cobra's seat before answering.

"Oh it's fascinating," she said in a sarcastic tone, "Twenty particles of space dust per cubic meter, fifty-two ultra-violet spikes, seven planets, four of them are gas giants, a regular type class D planetoid and a class three comet. The inner two planets are too close to the systems star to be any real candidate for mining at present that we couldn't gain via the synthesizers anyway."

"Ok, plus there's no 'stargate' anywhere in the system so we can assume that locals don't visit here all that often."

No sooner had Kaplan started this fact than the enhanced scanners of the ESINT pack attached to the Thunderbolt mark seven-B detected a large ship jumping into the system.

"Me and my big mouth, begin scans."

"Copy, running passive scans now."

The two waited for a few seconds as the scanners on the ESINT equipped Thunderbolt seven-B discreetly scanned the unknown contact, processed and displayed the data on their displays.

"Ok the contact would appear to be slightly larger than some of the bigger pyramid ships. I'm seeing over three dozen capital scale weapons."

"That is just so typical of the local ships which we've seen, they have a strange mix of tech, FTL capable but at sub-light speeds, they're no better than a megaton class destroyer from before space war one. I'm no expert but I'd bet that even an old Tri-Star destroyer would be able to handle one of these pyramid ships one-on-one with ease." Replied Anders.

"Maybe…" The console beeped again, "Hello, what's this."

They watched as a massive ship de-cloaked. It moved slowly towards the first in a slow and menacing fashion. After about three minutes they detected a massive energy build up followed by a single energy blast which caused the first ship to explode completely.

"DECULTURE!" Shouted Kaplan as she looked at the energy readings, "That thin is massive. Going by these readings that thing is about the size of Nupetiet-Vergnitzs class fleet command ship. The energy reading from that one shot alone was equal to a first generation guided beam cannon. Yet we have no idea if that was a full power shot or not, but it is massively beyond anything that we've seen so far."

"Looks like we've just seen the biggest and baddest guys on the block."

"I hope so, and I hope that they are friendly otherwise we are going to have a Promethean sized problem."

They continued to watch as the massive ship appeared to scan the wreckage of the slowly expanding debris field before tractoring in a small section of it and jumping away into hyperspace.

"Ok, activate all systems and scanners and let's see what we can learn about that weapon then we'll finish up our survey and return to the barn early. Something tells me that the commander is sure as hell not going to like this one little bit."


	5. Chapter 04: State of the Union

**Chapter 04: State of the Union**

Admiral Cutter watched as the acting senior staff, with the exception of major O'Neill who was out on patrol, filtered into the main observation lounge just off the bridge and sat down around the same table that Hudson had used only three days before.

While he wasn't exactly comfortable with an imperial officer being involved with the daily business for the ship but he trusted Hudson's judgement and understood it was required given their current situation.

"Alright let's get started." He said as he turned to face Hudson. "First, as of this date I am issuing a field promotion to commander Hudson to the rank of commodore. Once my time is up I have pre-set the computer to increase his security clearance to change from Alpha-Three to Alpha-One. This will allow him access to all the data that he will need to fully command a Macross Fleet battlefortress, including all of the classified files of a Macross Fleet admiral."

Hudson didn't look too happy to hear this, but he understood that it had to be done.

"As for how you have all handled things since the battle, I can only say that I can grateful to have such a brave and courageous crew." He paused taking a sip of water as he turned to look at sub-commander Dvorak, "and I'm sure that if Atriums was here, he would say the same, sub-commander."

Dvorak smiled slightly, although it was a sad smile brought on by the memories of her now dead commander and other ship mates from the Blood Haze.

"Now how are the repairs proceeding?"

"The reflex reactors and the sub-space drive core have been successfully reactivated, however we will only be able to travel at hyper four point nine for the moment. Without a complete level one dry dock overhaul I do not believe we can risk the ship going any faster." Said major Murdoch.

Cutter nodded at him. "Excellent major, you and your engineering teams have gone beyond the call, well done. Next, what's the situation in the local space?"

"Sir, the Lantea system and the three nearby star-systems have no real evidence of habitation," Stated ensign Campbell, who had taken over the duties of ship board operations at Hudson's request. "The very limited members of the ships science staff have managed to come up with an initial analysis of the 'stargate', as they have taken to calling the device found by one of the recon flights, along with one on the local's FTL. Those two reports have been forwarded to both you and commodore Hudson for your future review."

"Ok, defensive status?"

Hudson grunted as Welsh started to speak. "Or lack thereof. Shields are completely shot, pin-point is available for sector two Delta, basically the flight deck of armour two, we will be lucky if we can get either system back on-line without a twelve month dry-dock, as it stands we can't repair them to any real status."

"What about the structural integrity fields?" asked a very nervous Campbell.

"The SIF grids are on a separate system which, while damaged is working within acceptable parameters." Stated Murdoch as it was more of an engineering question then a tactical and security question.

"Ok, main shields and PPB's are out," Confirmed Cutter, "What about the armour, weapons, Destroid and Air wings?"

"Gottfried's came back on-line with the restoration of main power. We are basically out of torpedoes, we've maybe a dozen Korinthos missiles, Neidhart anti-battle station torpedoes and a handful of those new Trans-phasic drones. All the weapons for both the destroids and the air-wing are full but that's it for now. Given some time we could siphon off some anti-protons from the reserves to replace the used Korinthos missiles, since we would need a fleet station or a base of operations to replace the Neidhardt's and the Trans-phasic drones, but until we have an idea of how long we are going to be stuck here I would highly recommend against doing that, sir."

Cutter looked at Hudson and shared a brief look of concern. "Very well, but only once we are underway again then siphon of enough anti-protons to bring us back up to fifty percent status just to be safe."

"Aye sir. As for the armour system we should be able to fully deploy it right now, but given the damage to the outer hull, my engineering team and both major Sisko's MACO's and lieutenant Welsh's security teams suggest that we will have about sixty to seventy-five percent effectiveness."

"How soon could it be brought up to full-power?" Asked Dvorak.

Welsh shook her head. "Like I said sub-commander, without access to a dry-dock, I'd estimate a year maybe two and even then it would only be up to eighty percent at best."

"So we either need to find a safe harbour or a repair dock…" Cutter deliberately leaving the sentence open to see what these junior officers whom had been thrust into a situation that even he had no idea how to deal with it.

"The asteroid field." Said Campbell after a few moments which caused everyone in the room to look at her, which made her start to sink into her chair until she caught sight of Hudson to continue.

"Well the asteroid field in this system is loaded with enough Trinium and other key materials to rebuild the ship from scratch, plus several of them look large enough for us to, in theory at least, be able to mine out and convert into a small base and dry-dock."

Welsh smiled at the younger woman's suggestion. "Crafty, and the concept goes back to the early days of the Macross Fleet. By hollowing out one of the mid to large sized asteroids we gain a hidden base plus the field is far enough out from the planets that it would be highly unlikely that we would be spotted by any passing ships."

"Crafty indeed, ensign are you're sure you're not from Macross Fleet intelligence or something?" Asked Dvorak in a highly impressed and joking manor.

"Indeed," Stated Murdoch, trying hard not to look at the Imperial officer whom was sitting across from him. "If we are to be stranded her for any significant time frame, it would allow us the time too not only rebuild the ship but also replace our lost weapons, and if we are here for an extended time frame it would allow us to consider building a few additional support ships."

"Are you sure that's wise sir?" Asked ensign Cochrane, who had until now been totally silent. "We barely have enough crew to man the Archangel at the minute, and you are thinking about building support vessels!"

"Actually ensign, the type two SDF class battlefortress requires a minimum of 15,000 personal to operate at an acceptable level of efficiency. Given that, including our 'guests', we currently have 29,845 crew members on the ship, we could potentially field one or two smaller classes of vessels, say a Sabre tactical scout or a Charon class light assault ship, and suffer only a two percent loss in crew efficiency while expanding our own defensive abilities."

"Well that is something to consider at a later date," Stated Cutter in an attempt to get the conference back on track, "for now we will scan the asteroid field to find a suitable candidate for initial mining and later conversion into a base. For now we need to discuss the local ships and establish a set of rules relating to first contact."

"Will the SD-001 still be in effect?" Asked Welsh.

Cutter looked over at Hudson before answering. "I can't say if it should or not be applied, as I feel that it will need to be need to be discussed on a case by case basis by commodore Hudson and the rest of you. I will however state that it should be used as it was during the time of Admiral Maximilian Jenius in that it should only be used as a guide line."

Cutter watched as the others all looked over at Hudson who withered slightly under their gaze. Cutter knew that Hudson was completely un-ready and un-willing to be his new XO, as it was a big difference between a solo-command of an Izumo class mid-range battleship to solo-command of an SDF type two class battlefortress stranded in a totally different dimension.

He just hoped that he had the time left to try and prepare the young officer for the burden he would soon have to carry.

"Now let's have an overview of the local's."

Everyone turned to face the main display viewscreen at the back of the room as Welsh activated it with the analysis that she, Cochrane and major O'Neill had created.

"Most ships, which we have observed are while equal to or larger than the Great Pyramids of Giza they are extremely primitive. Energy readings from the largest are comparable to first or second generation ARMD class carriers at best."

"So they are not much of a threat to us then?" asked Dvorak.

Welsh shook her head. "Theoretically if they were able to catch us with shields, PPB's and armour down and could carry out an Alpha Strike with odds of ten to one. If we have the shields and PPB's active it would target practice at best, with the armour deployed a waste of their time at worse. Though, we have to assume that any of their military ships must rate a lot higher up the tech scale, though without a scan of any such vessels we can only make a series of educated guesses about any such craft."

"And the ship that Nemesis flight spotted?" Asked Campbell as she tried not to shiver as the video of the largest ship they had seen so far played on the screen.

"It's energy readings when it de-clocked and fired a shot that was equal to a first generation guided beam cannon, but we believe that was a low level shot as we would not use a full powered Gottfried shot in a similar situation."

"So what would you say that the upper range of its weapons could be?" Asked Cutter.

"Not good sir, it is comparable to our own Gottfried's at best."

"That's not good. So what else do we know about that ship?" Asked Dvorak.

Welsh nodded to Cochrane, to allow the young ensign to take over the briefing.

"Not much as Nemesis flight was only using their passive scanners, as per the sub-commanders orders. What we do know is that it was around the size of a Gorg Bodolzza type Nupetiet-Vergnitzs class fleet command ship and is just as well armed."

"The super visionary army?" Asked Hudson which caused everyone in the room to tense up.

"Similar sir, but different at the same time. Unfortunately we did determine two things which should have us concerned."

"Only two?" Muttered captain John 'Marauder' Andrews the commander of Phoenix Thunderbolt squadron and major O'Neill's air group executive officer.

"One, the ships main weapon appears to be identical to that of the robotic planet killer that was encountered by the ESMF Constellation just over a century ago. However if the readings were correct, then the second thing is more disturbing as both ships where crewed by humans."

There were a few gasps as the senior staff all tried to adjust and imagine humans crewing a ship the size of the Great Pyramid as everyone just stared at the screen in complete disbelief and shock.

"Great." Snarled executor Granger, who Dvorak had ordered to admit his true rank as an operative of the Imperial intelligence section. "Well isn't that just fracking great, we are in a dimension without Trojans, Zentradi, the Empire of Zodiac control but you Humans are her. Isn't this just Sanguinum Egregie!"

"So…"

"Battlestations! Battlestations set level two throughout the ship, admiral Cutter to the bridge, commander Hudson to the bridge. I say again Battlestations! Battlestations set level two throughout the ship. This is not a drill!"

Everyone scrambled out of their seats and filled out of the observation lounge, worried about the sounding of the alert and each hoping that it wasn't the ship that was spotted by Nemesis flight.

-{[]}-

Light-years away on board Earths very first and currently only interstellar capable space vessel, the united states air force X-303 Prometheus, the ships commanding officer colonel William Ronson exits a lift with the executive officer of the stargate programs flagship exploration team, SG1, major Samantha Carter while asking her a question about their next cool down location.

"So this star-system is different from others how?"

"Well sir that is what makes it so exciting." Responds Carter as the pair start walking down the corridor that leads to the ships bridge. "We don't know exactly."

"And this system just so happens to be the location of our next cool-down for the hyper-drive?"

"Yes sir, we will actually drop out on the outer edge of the system colonel. All I ask is two hours tops."

"If only to see the expression on your face first hand. The words 'kid' and 'candy store' spring to mind." Said Ronson with a smile on his face.

"I'll try to retain my composure sir." Says Carter doing her best impression of her SG1 team mate Daniel Jackson.

"Just keep in mind that our mission is to get this bird home in one piece." Says Ronson as the ships public-address system interrupts his conversation.

"Colonel Ronson, report to the bridge."

"Must be time." States Ronson as he allows Carter to pass, "After you major."

-{[]}-

"Report!" Cutter ordered as he sat down in his command chair and stared at the recently repaired main tactical screen.

"Sir, we've detected a hyperspace related event on the other side of the system." Stated the duty officer, captain Maria Hill, who was sitting at the flight operations station. "Ice Queen, Angel and Anime with Joker in an ESINT equipped 7B are moving to investigate with orders to hold at five light seconds from the event."

Cutter gave a subtle nod to the captain and turned to Hudson, who took a seat in the executive officers chair. "Good work Hill."

He turned to face lieutenant Welsh who was taking over the tactical station. "Activate the Gottfried cannons."

"Erm sir, only the main cannons are working. The ventral and ARMD cannons are still off-line, engineering reports that they should be back on-line by the end of tomorrow. I'd suggest that we move the destroids into their alcoves and bring the rest of the air wing to alert status."

"Make it so."

"I believe that I said that they should be on-line by eighteen hundred." Said Murdoch from the engineering sub-station.

Welsh pinched the bridge of her nose fighting the urge to reply.

Cutter and Hudson both shared a brief look of amusement, as Murdoch was well known to have railed up the late chief Brown with his typical Trojan completeness.

"Well one array will have to do then. Helm bring us out of orbit one quarter thrust."

"Aye sir, brake orbit one quarter trust." Said Newman from his post at the primary pilot's helm.

Slowly the fifteen hundred meter Archangel broke from orbit of the un-inhabitable dark side of Lantea Beta's sensor shadow and advanced towards the unknown contact that had just entered the system via FTL.

"Readings are starting to come in, sir."

"On screen." Ordered cutter as he took another sip of water from the canteen he had with him in the observation lounge.

The image that came in was fuzzy but it was clear that the ship was a warship.

"Sweet lord that things armed more than a Macross cannon!"

"It's length is one hundred ninety five meters, eighty meters high, and sixty-five meters high. Power readings are high but slowly dropping to similar levels to that of the other ships we've seen so far. Her crew compliment is one hundred fifty all human."

"Deploy the armour!" Ordered Hudson, causing Cutter to raise an eyebrow at the order. "Sir, if this is a typical example of the local humans military and they are this primitive then we can't let them see the ships name. I'd also recommend that we recall the C.A.P. and the drones at least until we can remove ESUN standard from all external surfaces."

Cutter nodded, it was a good idea and it would allow them to hide their true identity from the locals until they decided to become a larger part of the galactic community. "Make it so."

The unmistakable sound of the trans-phasic armour activating and covering the hull could be heard as it clunked into place.

"Sir, Angel and Anime's ESINT 7B have landed. The CAG will be landing within the next two minutes." Said Andrews from the flight operations station having relieved Hill from the post.

"Status of the unknown?" Asked Cutter.

"She's launched a small probe and is scanning the system. The probe is as primitive as the one sighted by Griffon flight and even without shields I doubt that it would be able to scan one of the Thunderbolts." Said Welsh from the tactical station.

"That ship that Nemesis flight sighted would wipe the floor with them." Muttered Campbell from the co-pilots post at the helm.

"Here's hoping that they don't know each other." Muttered Dvorak from the damage control station with Granger near-by.

Cutter coughed lightly which everyone present took as a sign to cut the chatter. "Alright people. Helm bring us towards them, but keep our acceleration below two hundred kph, even if it is really, really slow, it won't allow us to tip our hand just yet."

"Advance towards the contact, two hundred kph max, aye sir." Replied Newman.

Time crept along very slowly as the two ships inched towards each other, and although the Prometheus didn't know it but they were fast entering into a first contact situation.

"They've seen us admiral. She turning towards us very slowly." Stated Cochrane who stopped as his comm-scan console beeped to get his attention. "Incoming signal, I think."

"You think?" Asked Hudson raising an eyebrow in a fair approximation of Murdoch. "You mean that you're unsure ensign?"

"Yes sir, it would appear that the locals use a mix of tachyon particles and sub-space com-techniques, we are having a bit of trouble adapting the comm-system to accept the hybrid signal."

"Okay. Well then I think that it is time to play alien, using the forward running lights flash the first ten prime numbers. Then wait for a reply and transmit to them a standard first contact package on the on their frequency," Cutter said, "but for the love of god don't use standard use…" Started Cutter as he looked over at Hudson to answer, since he knew more about the current crew complaints make up than he did.

"Zentron sir, it'll be safe enough since all the crew can speak it if we are stuck here for any length of time, and if we need an ambassador as well."

Cutter nodded for Cochrane to do so and smiled at Hudson. The newly minted commodore was a solid tactician and strategist, and it seemed that he was beginning to apply that process to the command of an SDF class battlefortress. Now if only he could do it without fear of his Varauta heritage.

Cutter also wondered how the rest of the crew would react to him once they learnt about the commodores origins and what he had stored within hanger zeta one seven nine.

-{[]}-

"Sir, the hyper-drive engines are at maximum safe temperature." Said major Erin Grant from the navigation station just in front and to the right of colonel Ronson's command chair as both he and major Carter walked onto the bridge.

"Shut them down major Grant and begin cool down procedures."

"Yes sir. Dropping out of hyperspace and venting the drive compartment."

"Major Carter," Says Ronson as he turns to face SG1's resident scientist while the ship drops out of hyperspace. "What's our progress?"

"Well sir, we covered a little over fifty-one light-years in that last leg, and considering that the hyper-drive we're using was removed from a captured Alkesh, a ship which is one-tenth the size of this, I'd say that's actually pretty good going." Says Carter as she looks at the navigational log on her tablet, while she lunched the first of the recon drones that she, Siler and Walter had designed to explore any system that the SGC sent the Prometheus too.

"So only five more of these little pit-stops and where home." Said Ronson knowing full well that there was a small army of scientist and SGC technicians just waiting to get their hands on the ship and all the data that was in her navigational computers.

"Colonel, a bogey just appeared on our scanners. It's coming out of the sensor shadow of one of the twin planets." Stated Grant after examining the readings as they were displayed on her monitor.

"Can you identify the contact?"

"Negative sir." Said Grant as Carter moved to one of the forward scanner stations next to the view port. "It's closing on us quickly though."

"Sound general quarters!" Ordered Ronson deciding to err on the better side of curation.

All across the ship the combat klaxon sounded and the lighting dimmed as power was diverted to the defensive systems.

"Contact is now at two thousand kilometres."

"Raise shields and arm all weapons. How long until we can return to hyperspace." Asked Ronson after ordering the shields to be raised while catching sight of the ship approaching them.

"Contact is now at nine hundred kilometres and slowing down sir."

"The drive needs at minimum two hours to cool before we can even attempt another jump." Responded Carter without even needing to check the engineering displays. "If we attempt to use it before it has cooled down we run the very high risk of it overloading and destroying the ship."

"Colonel, I'm getting an unusual reading from the contact." Says the sensor operator at the station which Carter had moved next to.

"We're being scanned."

"Major Grant, activate the ship to ship communications on a wide frequency configuration, and transmit the first contact package I want to talk to them."

Nodding the major set about configuring the system for ship-to-ship communications on a wide frequency range. After about a minute or so she nodded to Ronson. "Go ahead sir."

"This is colonel William Ronson, commander of the Tau'ri battle cruiser Prometheus, please respond." Stated Ronson. "If you can hear me, we have sent you a data package containing peaceful greeting from the people of Earth."

"Contact is now at four hundred kilometres and holding sir."

"Sir visual sensors are showing a bright green light coming from the unknown ship sir." Stated Carter as she looked over the shoulder of the sensor technician. "It's the first ten prime numbers I think?"

"Well it's a response of sorts." Says Ronson as he released the small breath that he hadn't even realised that he had been holding. "Okay. It looks like they have received our message and data packet but might need some time to translate it into their language, so they have used the universal language in an attempt to open up a dialogue."

"Sir, we have an incoming signal." Reports Grant as she listens to the response from the unknown ship and looking at the communications screen in front of her. "They have transmitted a data packet of their own on the same frequency we used, it looks like our own first contact packet but I don't understand a word of it."

"Forward it to the language department and get them to work on it." Ordered Ronson as he looked out the viewport at the alien ship.

They had made first contact with another space faring species, and unlike the Goa'uld, this one had all the appearances of starting off on the right foot, and maybe they had found someone who was willing to help them to fight against the Goa'uld.

Now all they had to do was wait for one ship or the other to translate the others first contact package, that however could take hours and they still had to carry out the survey and search for the lost city that they were ordered to do whenever they had to drop-out of hyperspace to allow the hyper drive to cool down again.

Although due to the fact that they had yet to detect any signs of naquadah in the system so far it seemed very unlikely that the Ancients would build a city and not place a stargate for the to travel around the galaxy, but it might be a good place for an off-world base if they could get a gate to one of the planets in the system.

That is if these new comers didn't have a previous claim to the system that is, thought Ronson.

-{[]}-

"Commodore Hudson sir, long-range scans have detected something entering the system."

Hudson cursed slightly under his breath, why was it that something was always picked up on the long-range scanners whenever he was drinking his raktajino. Slowly he turned to face the MACO non-comm who was currently manning the main comm-scan station on the bridge.

"What kind of 'thing' corporal?"

The corporal shook his head. "I don't know sir. It appears that the scanner are having a hard time locking it down but it's big, I'd say it's about the size of a Thurvel-Salan class battleship, but due to the stealth field its putting out and the distance are making it tricky to detect, although it is closing but it is still well outside the sensor range for the Prometheus at present."

Hudson placed his cup of the high powered Zentron coffee down and activated the small view screen built into his chair and scrutinized the very limited sensor data they had on the battleship sized contact. It looked slightly smaller than the Thurvel-Salan class and wouldn't pose much of a threat, but the fact that it was attempting to remain undiscovered set it as an automatic threat and a concern. "Alright keep an eye on it."

"Understood sir. Designating the contact as bogey one and setting it as a level two threat at this time."

Hudson turned back to look at the Prometheus, it had launched a few more of their low powered recon drones, though what they were searching for eluded him, and even Cochrane's limited science team where stumped, but they had suggested that they were looking for the strange element used to power their hyper-drive and the stargate in any system which was unclaimed and showed potential for colonization or mining.

Several of the senior staff had suggested to Cutter and Hudson that they lay claim to the Lantean system since it had almost everything they needed, and it seemed to be unused by the local races of this galaxy.

Cutter had smiled and just said that it was up to commodore Hudson to make this decision and that he would only act as an advisor from now on.

The admiral had taken the sad news of his impending death gracefully and was grateful for the chance to be able to put as much of his personal affairs in order as possible and assist the newly minted commodore with his transition to the command of the Archangel, especially if they ended up being trapped in this universe for any great amount of time.

"Any response from the Prometheus?" Hudson asked as he stretched in the command chair.

"Negative sir. If I had to take a wild guess I'd bet that they are having a fair amount of trouble with Zentron." Hudson couldn't see sergeant Forge at the communication's station face, but he could tell from her voice the she was smiling. Since Zentron and Meltron were both a grammatical nightmare with six basic tense.

"I fell their pain. Well let's give them another two hours or so then send them a very basic message in standard text only saying that we've broken their language keys."

Hudson turned as he heard the entrance hatch opened to allow the delta shift access to the bridge being led by sub-commander Dvorak.

"I am here to relieve you." She said as she saluted Hudson as though she was still on board an Imperial cruiser.

Hudson stood up from the command chair before returning the salute, much to the confusion of the bridge crew and his own amusement. "I stand relieved sub-commander."

Dvorak smiled, thankful that he and some of the more senior staff where trying to help her and the rest of the survivors from the Blood Haze to adjust to Macross Fleet approaches, by allowing them to keep at least some of their own rules and traditions.

Hudson picked up his cup of raktajino and walked with the other bridge crew from gamma shift, and arrived at the hatch with the non-coms who had manned the tactical and flight operations stations.

"Why did you do that sir." Asked Forge.

"It's a long story Sasha. I'll tell you over a drink in the little white dragon."

"Aye sir." Hudson turned to face gunnery sergeant Sasha Forge, one of the MACO detachment that had been transferred over to ships security, when he noticed that Dvorak was walking over to the helms co-pilots station.

"Ensign Campbell, could I talk to you in private please."

Hudson never heard what the answer was as the hatch closed. "Deculture!" he muttered to himself, now worrying about just what they were going to share with each other. "This is not going to end well at all."

-{[]}-

Ronson looked at the display screen off to the left of his command chair on the bridge of the Prometheus, which was displaying an image of a standard Goa'uld Ha'tak next to that of the unknown ship once again. Neither ship had moved so much as an inch in the five hours since the initial contact, and some of the crew were starting to get a little nervous.

While the alien ship was by all appearances could with stand the Goa'uld inspired plasma cannons mounted to the Prometheus, the intermittent energy readings and the ease with which it carried out even the simplest of course corrections to match the Prometheus was a sign that it would be able to run rings around the Earth built starship.

"How are the techs coming?" Asked Ronson as he took a sip of his coffee, while looking over to the senior master sergeant Ambrose was who shook her head.

"Not good, they report that they are having real trouble and have actively been heard wishing that doctor Jackson was here. It would appear that these people use at least three basic grammatical tenses possibly even five."

"Five?" Muttered captain Jennings from a post at the plot table. "That's more than the Goa'uld use. This could take weeks to decode, even if doctor Jackson was here, why can't everyone do this the correct way."

Ronson looked at his executive officer, once again wondering how a man like that had made it through the SGC psych screening with his earth centric views were worrying and reminded him of that rouge element that had tried to discredit the SGC a few years ago, which was Ronson was seriously considering stepping down and taking that posting at Area 51 when they returned to Earth.

"We have however discovered that they use an atmosphere almost identical to ours." Said Ambrose, in an attempt to placate her superior officer. "Eighty one point nine percent oxygen, fourteen point eight five percent CO 2, I believe that it would be possible to visit their ship once we have sorted out the small problem of the language barriers."

"I'd bet that it stinks worse than the sewers under New York over there." Muttered Jennings as he walked away from the plot table towards the engineering station on the bridge.

"Well, while we are sitting here, our small recon probes have been carrying out the scans of this system." Ronson said as he moved to the science station to be joined by major Carter.

"The twin planets have both suffered an extinction level event at some time within the last one hundred million years, yet the contaminate matter within the their atmospheres would indicate that they should be suitable for colonization within the next ten thousand years or so, wouldn't you agree master sergeant?"

"Yes ma'am, maybe sooner if we were to use a dome like structure." Answered Ambrose. "There are a significant number of indicators for useful minerals in the system, so a future mining effort by the SGC might be worth undertaking, but the lack of a stargate might make it an unlikely venture at this time." She paused as she turned to face both Ronson and Carter. "However, if this is the edge of their space, it might make sense to harvest a stargate from another system and place it here and share the custody of it with this race, it would be a way for the SGC to, potentially, have open access to their culture and technology markets."

Ronson smiled, glad to see that at least some of his crew were still open to learning from the other races in the galaxy. He turned as the hatch opened and a small group of crew entered the bridge, "Shift change, alright alpha shift are to hand over their posts. All senior officers are to get some food and sleep, that includes you major." He said looking at Carter. "But stay prepared as we are still in a first contact situation."

As one all of the bridge crew, officers and NCO's alike, including major Carter, moved towards the hatchway, all that is except captain Jennings, glade that their shift was over.

As the hatch way sealed again Jennings walked over to the lieutenant who was now manning the defence and primary sensor station. "Franks, do you think that you might be able to get a clear scan of that other ship to get us a more detailed scan of the interior?" he asked quietly.

Lieutenant Franks look over the readings then tried unsuccessfully to hide a small smile. "I believe it could be done, if we focused all of the sensors onto a small section of their hull while firing the main gun at that same spot. Where that close that we wouldn't even need to use the targeting systems."

Jennings nodded and leaned into whisper quietly, so that none of the other crew could over hear him. "You should make it look like a 'malfunction', you know how 'uneducated' major Carter and the colonel are about other races."

"Understood."


	6. Chapter 05: Filling in the Blanks

**Chapter 05: Filling in the Blanks**

Campbell followed the Imperial officer, whom for the moment, was her superior officer into the main observation lounge just behind the bridge. Dvorak took a seat near the centre of the table as did Campbell but in the opposite side of the table.

"Now Meer may I call you Meer? If I may I would like to ask you a few questions, but feel free not to answer or to tell me to get lost if I am prying too much." Campbell nodded in acceptance while Dvorak asked the one question that she needed an answer to. "Ok I would like to know what is the nature of your relationship with commodore Hudson?"

Meer knew that this sort of question was bound to be asked by the sub-commander, since she knew a little of the history between the sub-commander and the commodore, but she still didn't feel overly comfortable sitting here one-to-one with the imperial woman.

"He's my mentor almost like a big brother nothing more." She waited a few moments to see how Dvorak would react. "As you know, when things were going extremely bad for Macross Fleet command against the Disruptors, fleet command drafted all of the fourth and fifth year cadets at both the Robotech academy and the MACO combat school into active service and assigned to the core systems on older Minerva class battlecruisers and a few of the first generation Tri-Star destroyers for the patrols, thus freeing up our heavy hitters for the frontlines. Again, as you know Kira, I mean the commodore, was assigned to a Tri-Star destroyer in the Beta Orion sector and became trapped behind enemy lines when his ship was destroyed by the Disruptors."

"This I am aware of young one as I was there."

Campbell sunk a little in embarrassment before straightening back up. "Yes ma'am, you were however you wanted to know so please let me tell the story my way."

Dvorak smiled and bowed her head conceding the point, and Campbell relaxed a little bit more when she saw this.

"Well, after the war all of the surviving cadets returned to the academy and combat school, and as most of them had been spared anything more that the occasional pirate raid or civilian ship with engine trouble, so they had no real problems settling back in, kira however… struggled."

"I arrived at the Robotech academy the following semester but my reason for joining wasn't for exploration but revenge. My sister had been killed when Babylon II was attacked in a raid during the attack on the Beta Orion sector. I signed up for the Macross Fleet right after that but was only able to enter the academy after the war, and at that time I was a very quiet person not to mention a very frightened young lady."

"One of the instructors decided that it would be a good idea if the returning cadets whom where having… trouble should be paired with the new cadets that were struggling. The thinking was that it might help both parties, so I was paired with Kira, though as you can imagine it didn't exactly go well at first."

Dvorak tried, completely not to choke on her glass of water from which she had just taken a sip as she started to laugh. "Yes, you and the commodore don't exactly seem to be a logical choice."

"Yes, well to say that it was a galactic understatement at first would be true, ma'am, but we helped each other a lot throughout that year. And no, I never slept with him, even though we we're close and we discussed pretty much everything else, we never even kissed. Are you happy ma'am."

Dvorak suddenly realised that this young, and nervous human, had somehow managed to turn the tables on her. It was at times such as this, and her suggestion during the last briefing session, that Hudson had been a very good influence on her.

"I am neither happy nor sad by what you have just told me, I was merely curious as to your relationship with the commodore was. If we are to be stuck within this universe, then I need to know who you are, and while I trust his judgement, I would much rather decide for myself what your abilities and skills are if we are to work well together."

"If you say so sub-commander." Campbell said with a very slight, almost predatory, smile on her lips as she watched the imperial officer.

She found that it was easy to read her, as many of her personal mannerisms and sub-conscious gestures where the same as those of Hudson, and she knew a lot about her from the stories of her adventures with Hudson and doctor Morse during their time trapped behind enemy lines in the Beta Orion sector.

"Is there anything else that you would like to know about me or my 'relationship' with commodore Hudson?"

"No that shall be all, thank-you ensign you may return to your post."

Campbell stood up and started to leave the observation lounge, but stopped just before she reached the door and looked back over at Dvorak. "Ma'am, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

Dvorak nodded her agreement for the younger woman to ask her question.

"Do you love him?" Campbell never got an answer, but just smiled to herself as she left the Imperial officer staring at her with a look of anger and confused shook as the door closed behind her.

-{[]}-

"End recording." Cutter had after five hours finished recording all of the messages which he needed to leave. "Computer set last message to be delivered in forty-eight hours with holo-program Cutter Delta one alpha." The computer beeped in response.

Cutter looked around the flag suite at the books and paintings he kept here. He had already decided that he would turn all of it over to Hudson in the hope that the Hudson would learn as much from them as he had himself.

He stood up and walked around his desk he had been sat behind until he was standing in front of his favourite painting, it was one he had done himself of an older SDF 1 battlefortress floating off the coast of New Alexandria city, while underneath was a copy of the original plaque from the first ship to carry the name Archangel.

While other ships had famous quotes or sayings like the ESMF Macross 'Do or do not… there is no try." All the ships, submarines and spacecraft to bear the name Archangel all had the simple phrase, 'Victory is life so fires of hell beware.'

Cutter laughed at just how true that motto had sadly become for this ship, but he knew that whatever the future might hold for the ship, those who sailed in her would look after each other.

The Archangel had survived the Collective, the Disruptors, the Zodiac war and the Prometheans. Hell it had even survived a dimensional jump to a totally alien quantum universe.

"Bridge to Admiral Cutter."

Cutter sighed as he turned back to his desk and touched the comm-panel built into his desk. "This is Cutter, go ahead."

"This is lieutenant Havaris, we have something happening with the Prometheus that I warrants your attention, sir."

Cutter frowned, he was curious but unsure as to how a simple, though well-armed little ship, could pose a challenge to the Archangel. He turned and exited his flag-suite and back onto the still under repair bridge, noticing that the young ensign Campbell was exiting the observation lounge.

"Report." Ordered Cutter as he took a seat in his command chair.

"Sir, we're getting a slow but steady build-up of energy in what we believe to be their main weapons system." Said Havaris from the tactical station, as an engineer used the time tested method to get a console working after just fixing it of banging it hard with his fist.

"Threat analysis?"

Havaris giggled before she regained her composure. "Sir it's minimal at best. Even with all the damage to the armour system and outer hull, I think that it would take at least a minute of uninterrupted fire, without us even attempting to evade, for that plasma pop-gun of theirs to pierce the armour." She reported as Dvorak returned to the bridge from the observation lounge and took a seat next to Cutter.

"So suggestions on how to respond?" Cutter asked as he watched Dvorak stare daggers into the back of Campbell's head.

"Sir, Dominion flight is waiting at the edge of the system." Stated Campbell who had been looking over the data for the flight-operations currently out on her console of the co-pilots seat. "We could have them fold in and carryout a combat landing."

"Interesting." Cutter said, thinking back to her suggestion during the briefing earlier in a new light, while he looked across to Dvorak.

Shocked, Dvorak blinking several times before recovering, and found herself to smile since it was an interesting idea and was one she herself would have suggested also, and while she was still angry at the young woman for her earlier question session, she could not and would not deny that the woman had a spark of potential. "Are you sure that you're not at least part Lantean ensign? It is a highly effective exercise in terror without us having to display any real power on our part."

Cutter chuckled softly. "That's not exactly how I would have said it, but it is accurate all the same." He turned so that he was facing Campbell again. "Ensign since this is your idea transmit the orders to Dominion flight. Lieutenant Havaris, let the deck crew of ARMD two know that we are going to carry out combat landings for Dominion flight."

Both officers nodded and went about their assigned tasks. Cutter smiled as he watched the crew get to work when he had suddenly had an idea. "Lieutenant Keys, once Dominion flight is secure, move us 100 meters off the Prometheus' bow and match their speed with the reverse thrusters."

"Should I use the thrusters to move us into position sir?" Asked Keys.

"Negative, full impulse if you please Ms Keys and Campbell, let's just show them just how out-classed the truly are."

"Aye sir."

Dvorak leaned over the central control panel to whisper to Cutter directly. "Devious admiral and it's an effective demonstration of power."

"Macross fleet command aims to please sub-commander." He whispered back, "Plus it saves us using the Gottfried's till we absolutely have too."

"I see now why Prefectus Atriums thought so highly of you sir."

-{[]}-

"Captain Jennings, the systems are ready." Stated Franks cryptically.

Jennings merely nodded as he turned to face the display screen off to the left of the bridge. "Very well. Power up the main cannon to full." Jennings sneered at the alien ship and how it was just sitting there waiting as of it wanted to be squashed like a bug by the Prometheus.

"It's powered up sir."

"Target the location from which that point of light was seen flashing."

"Aye…" Started Franks.

"Collision Alert!" Announced the airman at the forward sensor station.

"Report!"

"Sir, several ships have just appeared in our flight path!"

"All engines back full!" Jennings all but screamed as he turned to face Franks. "Where the hell did those ships come from?"

"Unknown sir. There was no warning, one second they were clear the next they were there."

"Display them on the screen." Jennings and those that could see the screen watched as the main screen switched from the display of the unknown ship the small group of ships, which looked slightly larger than a Russian SU-37 Flanker-F's as they shot towards the alien ship at an alarming rate of speed.

"My God! They are going to crash…" muttered someone from behind Jennings.

He never replied as everyone present watched in disbelief as the craft all flew over the top of their mother ship, before pulling an insanely high-g reverse thrust maneuver and slipped into a docking port on the side of the ship even as their armour pulled back to reveal a long runway like landing deck and docking port.

They watched in stunned shock as the fighters lower engines detached and swung forward to become a pair of legs as it slipped through an atmospheric retention barrier and into the docking port. They watched in helpless silence as the armour re-sealed it's self over the docking area.

"How… how long did that just take?" Jennings heard himself asking.

No one answered as suddenly the fifteen hundred meter long alien ship shot forward and parked itself directly inform of the Prometheus, no more than a hundred meters from touching the much smaller earth built starship, all the while matching their speed in reverse.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!" Demanded a highly irate Ronson as both he and major Carter came running onto the bridge.

After a few seconds of silence in which no one so much as breathed he asked again but slightly more calmly. "So, would somebody please care to enlighten me as to the reason that the 'alien' ship is sitting parked directly off the bow of my ship?" as he stormed towards his chair, leaving Carter and the rest of the bridge crew stunned, and all knowing exactly who Ronson's anger was directed at, even if they didn't know the exact reason for it this time. "Captain Jennings?"

Jennings pulled himself back up. He wasn't going to blow his cover as a member of the 'Trust' to this alien lover and allow him or that blond from SG1 to blame him for the actions of the unknown and dangerous behaviour. "Colonel, a group of unknown craft slightly larger than a SU-37, flew across the bow and docked with the alien vessel. They then moved directly into our flight path."

"And we did nothing to cause them to do such a thing?"

"No sir. The only thing which we were attempting was to conduct a deeper scan of their vessel."

Ronson settled into his chair while he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to work out just how the XO had made it through the SGC psych screening and how he had managed to possibly incite another alien race into wanting to destroy the Earth.

"Colonel, we're getting a signal from the alien ship, audio only."

"Let's hear it."

"This is the Zentraedi Macross fleet battlefortress Archangel to the USAF Prometheus. Could you kindly tells us why your weapons array was powering up and actively targeting us a few moments ago?" Asked a very hostile, though non Goa'uld, sounding voice.

Ronson turned as he cursed at the stupidity of the man that the SGC had appointed his XO and his earth-first point of view while trying not to growl at the idiot as he spoke to man. "Captain Jennings, you have exactly thirty seconds to explain your actions before I have you relieved of duty and confined to the brig under escort by the ship security pending court martial."

This announcement made all of the members of the crew present take a small step back and away from both officers out of a sense of fear.

-{[]}-

_Combat log 56480.9_

_Admiral J. G. Cutter recording._

_This will be my final long before I officially transfer command of the Archangel to the freshly minted commodore Kira Hudson._

_I have been out of my coma for twelve of my allotted thirteen days and I can already feel that things are starting to slip away from me. Doctor Morse has informed me that within the next two to three hours I will have to return to medical so I wish to file one last log update in the highly unlikely case that the ship and crew are able to return home._

_While the commodore's choice of a new executive officer is strange, since I know that he was friends with his former executive officer colonel Wildhorse for a very long time, I do agree with it given the current situation that we have found are self in and the level of comfort which would appear to exist between him and sub-commander Dvorak._

_Dvorak and her fellow Blood Haze survivors seen to have settled into the day-to-day running of the ship, but I am sure that because of the uniqueness of the current situation and the amount of intelligence information, that should we make it home, they would be able to take back to imperial high command._

_The computer still has several sections of the ship sealed off due to damage from number of various problems relating to either the battle against the Prometheans or our dimensional jump. Fleet command has records of ships or crews, mostly relating to the any ship or the crew assigned to a ship called Macross, I swear that ship is either cursed or lucky or both, jumping to or detecting alternate universe however they are normally so close to ours that they seem to be correct, but this one is different._

_According to colonel Ronson of the USAF space vessel Prometheus, the local date is August 10th 2004 which means that not only have we travelled to another dimension but also to a time when the first series of generation one ARMD series space carriers are under-construction in low earth orbit. From the information that the Prometheus has sent over to us we have discovered that one, all of the pyramid type ships that our recon flights have sighted belong to one race called the Goa'uld and manned by a slave race called the Jaffa. These Goa'uld are a race of parasitic snakes who rule the galaxy through fear by posing as 'Gods'. Two that these Goa'uld are the definition of the phrase 'ego maniacs', who are currently fighting against one of their own, but from all accounts that's nothing new, but this one seems to have a clear technological advantage over the rest, and that three, to the galaxy at large the people of this realities earth are known as the Tau'ri or the first world due to the fact that it was from this realities Earth that these Goa'uld first took humans back during the time of the Egyptian pharaoh's._

_I have decided that it would be safest if we were to relocate to the sol system so that we can use it as a base of operations to repair the ship, although we still plan to build a base off-world so that some of the more technological and dangerous aspects of our systems and Robotechnology don't fall into the wrong hands, and to maintain the secrecy of the Prometheans command structure known as stargate command._

_Their resident scientist, one major Carter, seemed shocked that we have no concept of hyper-space, 'funny that the local form of FTL is really called that', but we have managed to convince her that our own fold system is actually faster than their FTL._

_Shockingly it would seem that ships using this hyper-space can travel at speeds of up to hyper three, and that one of their allies a race called the Asgard are able to travel at hyper nine point nine for extended periods of time which allows them to travel from their home galaxy of Ida to Earth within a day. I suspect that with our higher sub-light speeds, greater power generation systems and vastly improved scanners, which once we have developed our own hyper-drive reactor core that we will not only be able to travel at a much greater speed and be able to travel to other galaxies._

_I have on my personal command authority promoted commander Kira Hudson to the rank of commodore as mentioned earlier and granted him access to all of the files and data to which I was privy, I have also promoted both ensigns Meer Campbell and Zefram Cochrane to the rank of lieutenant junior grade and named Cochrane as head of the ships limited science staff had been off-loaded before the battle of Lantea._

_Cochrane has a plan in place to launch a series of modified class XVI probes to scan and map local FTL traffic when we arrive within the sol system, a sort of FTL early warning system if you will, and hopes that we can develop our own hyper-drive reactor so that we can move around the galaxy without the risk of running into these Goa'uld._

_Log update._

_The more I view the recording of Nemesis flights observation of this Goa'uld super mother ship, as major O'Neill has taken to calling it, the more it worries me. There is something about it that just screams 'Planet Killer', but I know that as an admiral in the Macross Fleet I should judge an alien by how their ships look, but this super mother ship worries me._

_The Prometheus has sent us, in a cultural and tactical data exchange, a list on all known types of Goa'uld craft used by the major and minor players of the Goa'uld but not one of the ships match it even remotely. I suspect that this Anubis is either using something that is very, very, very new or given the limited data we have on it in the form of quantum dating on the scans would suggest that it is old, very, very, very, very old._

_For the safety of the crew and the ship I have made the recommendation that all Goa'uld ships, bases and planets should be avoided for the time being. Better to play it safe than to allow these parasites to have access to Robotechnology._

_It has been an honour to serve as the commanding officer of the Archangel for the last five years, and serve on her for the last seven years. I know that commodore Hudson will look after the crew and protect them with his life, he just has to accept who is and his Varauta heritage, and to use his talents fully._

_I know that he will be a good ships commanding officer for the Archangel, but I don't know if he is fully ready for the responsibilities that come with commanding a battlefortress at the moment. He is only thirty-nine, and while not the most experienced officer left, he is the only senior officer left with bridge command experience so he is the best choice. Major Murdoch is unsuitable for command nor are any of the other senior or deputy officers who are left._

_I feel somehow that this universe seems poised to be on the precipice of something, but whether that is something good or not I can't say, but if the Archangel is to be stranded here for a long time, then I know that this unplanned multi-national crew will do what it is meant to do while following the basic tenants of the Macross Fleet and her allies to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and civilizations and to go boldly where no one has gone before._

_Deculture, I can't believe that I just said that, well it's on the record now._

_Anyhow, if Macross fleet command is able to read this log then let it be known that I personally and professionally support any actions that is made by command… correction commodore Kira Hudson will take and I know that he, the crew and the ship will uphold the guiding principles of the Macross Fleet and bring honour to this ship and her history._

_Admiral James Gregory Cutter signing off._


	7. Chapter 06: Ha'tak's and Super Soldiers

**Chapter 06: Ha'tak's and Super Soldiers.**

_Combat Log date 56481.2_

_Commodore Kira Hudson recording._

_It is with a heavy heart that I must report the death of admiral James, G. Cutter. Admiral cutter passed away at 20:30hr last night due to a result of his injuries he sustained during the inter dimensional jump which has left the ship and her new multi-national crew stranded in this new universe, and has taken the total number of crew deaths since the 'Battle of Lantea' to two hundred and four._

_The bodies of all the deceased, or rather those that we have been able to locate, are currently being stored in one of the secondary cargo decks in torpedo casings while the new command staff, which includes sub-commander Dvorak of the Hansa Imperial Star empire and Executor Granger of the imperial Intelligence service, discuss appropriate funeral arrangements._

_Honestly however, I just don't know how the remaining crew is going to react when we have to deal with the numerous memorials in such a short amount of time or how we are going to do it, since every race has different rituals when it comes to death, so if we were to hold a simple general service it might not work._

_The suggestion of ensign Styles, our only surviving physiologist aboard, that we hold as many of the funerals as we can around the home-worlds of their race, and while that plan is the best one we have had to date, long-ranged ghost recon drone probes have already discovered that the Trojan home world has been destroyed by a massive solar flare which has burnt off the atmosphere in this dimension. As for the others the only world that we know that exist for certain is Earth herself, so that will be our first port of call for funerals._

_Currently however we are sitting in the Lantea system which is apparently at edge of one of these Goa'uld that calls itself lord Yu-Huang Shang Ti the jade emperor. This particular Goa'uld controls about 30% of the galaxy and is the least antagonistic towards the people of this Earth or Tau'ri as they are known._

_Personally I would like nothing better than to just go on the mother of all Macross attacks and wipe these Goa'uld from the face of existence if one more of the recon flights are threatened for not bowing down to these parasites, but I made a death bed promise to admiral Cutter that I would attempt to keep my protodeviln heritage and not stir up any trouble in case it sparks a full scale galactic war. However, if one more of these so called 'Gods!' are dumb enough to even attempt to seize any of my fighters or demand that are forces bow down and worship them, then I reserve the right to beam over to their ship and open fire with a Detonator weapons system and blast the hell out of their ship and introduce their commander to a god!_

_Where was I? Oh yes._

_We are currently sitting along sitting alongside the Prometheus while they conduct repairs to their FTL drive and major Murdoch's people finish repairing our own systems, which they have 'borrowed' to use colonel Ronson's phrase from a Goa'uld mid-range bomber about a tenth the size of the Prometheus._

_And yet, given that they are currently fighting this war against these Goa'uld in secret I can't but be surprised at the level of technology in use on the Prometheus, but if there are more people like the XO of the Prometheus then I might just have to show them what a 'rain of death' looks like, but first we need to arrive at earth._

_From what the command staff and I have discovered about this universe the general concessions is that it will be like dealing with a whole galaxy full of the Raul!_

_Anyway…_

"Bridge to Commodore Hudson."

Hudson sighed and paused the recording, which he admitted was probably a good thing. It was the first time he had tried to sit down and record a proper report. When he had been in command of the ESMF Drake before taking over as the gun-sight commander on the Archangel, he had simply used cliff notes approach for any official reports, but since he was now the Archangel's new commander, he was expected to not only keep the ships combat log updated, but also explain his actions and what had led to them happening, but he was finding that his emotions where getting the better of him when he did so, especially when things were starting to annoy him. He tapped the comm.-link which was built into the desk of the flag-suites desk. "Hudson here."

"Sir, we're getting some strange readings from the far side of the system." Reported Dvorak, who it seemed that admiral Cutter, being a sly old dog, in an attempt to promote a sense of greater unit co-hessian had listed officially as the ships XO. There was no apology for interrupting him, since it wasn't the imperial way, and Hudson had to admit that it was growing on him.

After the nearly undetectable arrival of the Prometheus into the system, Hudson had ordered the scanners to be switched from passive scan to active scan, and at the last staff meeting in which executor Granger had purposed that with a little bit of re-calibrations that they would be able to install version of the Hansa's hyper-track system and a cloaking system similar to that of a Conquer class battleship to which he had agreed.

They had been lucky that five of the survivors from the Blood Haze had been engineers, and one of them knew how to adapt both of the systems that the Macross Fleet had on record for use on the Archangel. However, they had held off with the installations following the death of admiral Cutter.

Hudson stood up and walked out of the flag-suite and onto the bridge. As he was about to ask Dvorak for some more information about the unusual readings they had detected alarms began ringing out all over the bridge as the ship was hit by weapons fire.

"Report!" Ordered Hudson.

"Sir, four contact's just appeared on scanners, Goa'uld Ha'tak class according to the updated war-book sir." Reported Welsh from the tactical station.

"Shields are down to ninety-eight percent." Informed Granger as another set of alarms began to ring and crew ran to their stations to initiate damage control and other key tasks.

"Murdoch, we've got four very hostile ships bearing down on our throats, what's the status of the Prometheus's fold system?"

"Sir their fold system is still recharging. They have transferred power to their shielding system." He reported over the comm.-link from the Prometheus.

"Deculture!" Hudson muttered under his breath, as he turned to face the helm, "Newman, full sub-light try to keep us between the Prometheus, even in our current condition we can take more of a beating than they can."

"Full sub-light aye sir." Newman confirmed as he and his co-pilot lieutenant Campbell began to move the Archangel so that she was taking more of the incoming weapons fire from the approaching Ha'tak's.

"Shields down to eighty-three percent." Welsh informed the bridge just as major O'Neill and a few of the bridge staff that had been on a break came running back onto the bridge and nearly falling as the ship received another series of hits from the attacking Ha'tak's.

"Any reason why we've only got the Ghost CAP playing with these Spawn of Khyron?" Asked O'Neill as she grabbed onto the side of the flight-ops station for balance.

"The flight decks took and EMP type hit at the start." Stated Granger from the damage control board, "Engineering is working on it."

"Sir reading multiple fighter type craft inbound to the Prometheus." Said Dvorak just as they received a hail from the attacking ships.

"I am your god Ares. Bow down before me." Said a human who had a strange double flange to it, not to mention the fact that his eyes glowed gold.

Glancing over at the comm.-station to open a channel so that he could respond to this idiotic fool attempting to try and make his crew bow down and worship him as if he was a god. "This is commodore Kira Hudson commanding officer of the Zentradi Macross Fleet vessel Archangel you have entered protected space. Stand down and prepare to be boarded, this is your only warning."

"You dare to threaten your GOD!" Said Ares as his eyes glowed again, just before he closed the channel and the rate of incoming fire increased.

"So be it, tactical commence targeting sequence for the main gun full power. I want that this fool's ship's removed from my sky."

"Aye sir." Said lieutenant Welsh as she began to activate the very seldom used main reflex cannon.

"Sir signal from the Prometheus, its colonel Ronson."

"On screen." Said Hudson as he took a seat in the command chair. "Colonel we are a little bit busy over here at the moment, how can we help?"

"We were just going to say that we stand ready to assist and thanks for the air support, you've got half my fighter pilots and major Carter practically drooling over them and how manoeuvrable they are."

Before Hudson could respond Welsh announced "Thirty seconds to main cannon firing, all ghost drones have broken contact and are clear of the fire lane. Enemy ships one, three and four are in the lane, ten seconds and contact two will be in the lane."

"Well that answers that." Says Ronson casually before switching back to command mode, "We'll stay where we are and provide cover fire."

"Understood colonel, but if I was you I'd just sit back and watch the fireworks."

-{[]}-

Outsider the Archangel the bow of the ship split as the beam polarizing system which covers the bow activates and massive amounts of energy used in the over-technology super-dimension energy cannon.

-{[]}-

Sitting in his throne like command chair on the Pel'tak Ares' watches as the bow of these Zentradi ship split in two, intrigued he made his way down to the forward view port. As he reached the view port his first prime Trelak interrupted his musings. "My Lord, there is an energy surge from the Zentradi ship."

"What kind…" Ares' never got to finish his sentence as the main cannon on the Archangel fired vaporising not only his Ha'tak and the three others but all of the death gliders which had been launched to attack both the Archangel and the Prometheus.

-{[]}-

Back on the Prometheus everyone on the bridge was in shock as they watched all four Ha'tak's and over three dozen death gliders simply cease to exist from a single shot from the Archangel. The silence lasted for a few seconds till one of the marines from SG4 who was acting a security guard muttered. "Oh, colonel O'Neill is soooo going to want one." Which caused everyone on the bridge to burst out laughing.

After several seconds in which everyone mentally pictured colonel O'Neill's reaction to the fire power of the Archangel, colonel Ronson asks, "Major Grant, major Carter, what was that?"

"Unknown sir." Says Grant as she pulls up the sensor logs.

"If I had to guess," Says Carter, "I'd say some sort of high powered plasma cannon, but looking at these sensor readings I'm not sure."

"Well it looks like we've made a friend."

-{[]}-

_Combat log date 56485.2_

_Commodore Kira Hudson recording._

_It's been three days since we were attacked by the forces of the Goa'uld who had taken on the mantle of the Greek god of War, and though we took some damage the worst of which was to ARMD 2's launching system for our air wing._

_Following the battle, in which I authorised the use of the ships main over-technology super dimensional energy cannon, we docked the Tau'ri battle-cruiser, although to call it that is very generous as even a Mk 1 Oberth class packed more of a punch, Prometheus and are currently taking it back to their homeport which through a twist of fate is Earth, and although we already knew that Earth existed in this dimension it was still a shock to learn that the birthplace of humanity is called the same as home._

_On that note lieutenant Cochrane has discovered that the only log we have relating to how we were transported across the dimensional barrier is a visual log, as all other recording systems cut off on average point two milliseconds prior to the impact of the drone, and they do not reactivate until ten seconds until after our arrival in this dimension. When he reported this I immediately ordered him to work with major Murdoch to carry out a level one diagnostic on the scanners, their memory modules and all of the related sub-systems, but so far his investigation has turned up nothing._

_I have held a preliminary meeting with this Stargate Command, or SGC as they call it, and have offered to assist them in upgrading and expanding their fleet into, well something that is actually worthy of the title by giving them the plans for some of the early Macross Fleet designs, namely first generation Drake class frigates, Nelson class battleship and Minerva battle-carrier class, in exchange for constructing a base on the dark side of Luna. While these class ships are three to four generations removed from the Archangel, they are easy enough to build with limited resources. The SGC's lead scientist, major Carter, expects that they can have the something to call a task force within six months._

_Personally I feel that this is a breach of the SD 001, since we are advancing the people of this planet, but since they have FTL technology already and knowledge of other races, or at least some of them do, it was felt by the command staff that we wouldn't be doing too much damage._

_Man why didn't I take that offer of leave that the admiral offered to me before the battle of Lantea._

-{[]}-

Hudson closed the log and sighed as he looked at the clock on his desk, 09:00 hrs and he was already on his fifth cup of raktajino of the day, he wondered how the devil the admirals of the fleet weren't always in medical with stomach ulcers, but he guessed that it was just part of the job now.

Standing up and stretching, he heard his spine pop in several places, making him realise just how long he had been sat cooped up in the flag suite reading reports of one form or another. Deciding that he needed to stretch his legs and see how the ship and crew where doing. Walking out onto the bridge the first thing he heard as the doors to the bridge opened was the room was filled with laughter, stepping on to the bridge he noticed that Newman was holding the bridge of his nose with a cloth. Curious he decided to ask, "Okay, what did I miss?" as he looked over at Dvorak who was standing next to the command chair trying to catch her breath.

"Newman… just… tried… to chat… up one… of the MACO's over the comm.-line not realising that it wasn't on private mode, that was at least until crew sergeant Sciuts came in from the rear hatch and hit him with a PADD from by the hatch before leaving and saying something about 'every dam posting'." Said Dvorak as she slowly caught her breath.

"Newman, tell me that you didn't say is that a map to your heart?" Asked Hudson, referring to the tattoos that the crew sergeant had, pinching his nose as he sat in the command chair.

"I neither confirm nor deny it sir." Said Newman as he gingerly touched his nose now that it had stopped bleeding, which was enough to get the bridge crew to start giggling again.

"Bad move," Said Hudson smirking as he remembered how flight lieutenant Blanc had asked that and ended up spending two full weeks in the tender care of medical, but before he could inform Newman on his possible fate captain Hill caught his attention.

"Sir we're receiving a text only message from the SGC."

"What's it say captain?" Asked Dvorak, instantly snapping back into command mode.

"They are requesting our help in analysing the armour of a warrior that was encountered off-world by an intelligence mission that SG1."

"Send a reply, message received and that we will be sending lieutenant Cochrane down shortly to assist with the analysis."

"Aye sir." Said Hill as she started to type the response back to the SGC.

"Well lieutenant, you heard the order grab whatever gear you think you will need from the science department and ensign McCloud and head down there, but try and keep Ace from hitting on every single woman on the base it's bad enough that colonel O'Neill and ensign Rockwell want to form a comedy double act dirtside."

"Aye sir." Said Cochrane as he attempted to not start laughing at ensign McCloud's disappointed face about how he was trying to be a Casanova for the ship.

-{[]}-

Several hours later and half a dozen security scans later, lieutenant Cochrane is standing next to major Carter and Selmak/ Jacob Carter as they all watch as the body of the warrior that Teal'c and master Bra'tac had encountered while they had been investigating some intel that they had gained about a summit of two minor Goa'uld.

"It looks like the suit is effecting the MRI scanner." Says Carter as the trio look at the MRI scanner results.

"As long as he is wearing that armour were not going to learn much more other than what we can see with the good old mark one eyeball." Injected Selmak/ Carter.

"I know, I don't understand it yet but even my own hand scanners can't get an accurate read on it, it's like somebody took the armour of a Promethean Knight and mixed it with the scanner blocking system of the Elvin collective's stealth armour and built it with a some of the element that is used in that stargate of yours." Says Cochrane as he uses his hand scanner on the warrior.

-{[]}-

"Begin recording." Said Cochrane as he tapped his communicator, "Combat date: 56486.9. Subject: Unknown warrior encountered by Master Bra'tac of the Jaffa rebellion and Teal'c of SG1. Present for this examination are major Carter of SG1, Lieutenant Cochrane, ZSMF Archangel science officer and Selmak/ Jacob Carter USAF general (retired). Of the Tok'ra." Glancing over at major Carter, who was in full surgical scrubs complete with full face mask, as she raised an eyebrow. "This way if something goes really, really wrong then they know who to blame."

"Funny." Said Selmak/ Carter as his daughter started to giggle.

"The subject is approximately 1 metre 98 centimetres in height," said Cochrane as he moved to allow Carter a better look at the figure, "and is wearing an armoured suit that according to scans taken of it appears to be a mix of Promethean Knight and incorporated the scanner blocking systems from Elvin Collective stealth armour, while constructing the system out of a mixture of elements including titanium alloy and the element used in the construction of the stargate called naquadah."

"His helmet appears to be made up of two pieces." Says Carter as she examines the helmet more closely so that she could see the seam where the two parts join. "Lieutenant could you pass me those forceps please." After a few seconds of trying to prise the helmet apart, they hear a slight hiss as the helmet breaks apart along the seam allowing them to remove it. "It looks as if he has been fused directly into this suit and has some sort of breathing filtration system."

-{[]}-

After three hours of examining the warrior in an isolation lab, Cochrane, Selmak/ Carter, master Bra'tac, SG1 and general Hammond are all gathered in the conference room that was located above the control room for the stargate while ensign McCloud silently had a staring contest with the two SF's stood by the stairs leading down from the conference room.

"It turns out that it's a Goa'uld, but quite frankly, this isn't half as disturbing as the appearance of the host." Says Carter as she looks at the room who are looking at the MRI scan that they had gotten of the host on the main screen in the conference room.

"That's a Meltron sized understatement, ma'am." Muttered Cochrane, causing McCloud to smirk at the age old Macross Fleet joke.

"How so?" Asks Hammond not understanding the joke.

"It has an unusual organ structure sir."

"Everything is out of proportion," States Selmak/ Carter with the same double flange that Ares had used, "physiologically the heart and lungs have had to be abnormally large in order to be able to supply enough blood and oxygen to all of the vital organs and its muscles. Basically it is as if someone attempted to create a genetically perfect athlete, with next to no care for the longevity of the host. Leaving it down to the healing powers of the symbiote to sustain the life of its host."

"An engineered host?" Asks doctor Daniel Jackson, his mind and the rest of SG1 instantly thinking about the experiments that had been done to their adopted niece Cassie and the rest of her people before they had been wiped out by Nirrti.

"Yes doctor, but it is an incredibly flawed clone since it was engineered without the use of any proto-culture within its cellular structure." States Cochrane as he typed some notes onto a PADD to show to doctor Morse and Joe when he returned to the ship.

"Correct lieutenant, and although I am unsure as to what this proto-culture os, even with the healing powers a Goa'uld symbiote it would only be a matter of time." Said Selmak/ Carter.

"We are still in the process of analysing the genetic data that the lieutenant gathered with his scanner, but from the evidence we have so far, there doesn't appear to have been any evidence of energy weapons trauma." Says Carter as if she hadn't been interrupted at all.

"What does that mean exactly major?" Asked Hammond, although the general already had a rough idea given that he was a closet Trekkie.

"The warriors armour appears to possess a highly advanced form of energy absorption technology, which if it works how both the lieutenant and I theorise it does, it wouldn't matter how many energy weapons or what type they are nothing short of capital ship scale energy weapons will be able to breach it."

"Lieutenant, sir, what about ensign Rockwell's 'Detonator' combat assault frame?" Asks McCloud, suddenly wondering if his own 'Sky Knight', 'Skybolt' or 'Space Interceptor' would as well.

"Negative ensign, they are just not powerful enough." Says Cochrane shaking his head having already considered the assault weapons packs that the ships special operations squad use.

"Are you suggesting that neither Teal'c nor Bra'tac didn't take this thing down?"

"Yes sir, apparently it would seem that the host was already on the verge of having a massive pulmonary failure long before they even encountered it."

"It had a heart attack?" Askes a clearly shocked Hammond, voicing the words that everyone in the room was thinking.

Slowly nodding Carter says, "I'm afraid so. Sorry Teal'c, I'm afraid that you didn't stop it, the pair of you just got lucky."

-{[]}-

Following the meeting breaking up, general Hammond went back into his office to the mountain of paper work that he had, Teal'c and Bra'tac to the gym to instruct some of the SG teams in the more basic moves of Jaffa combat while O'Neill and McCloud both headed for the mess hall muttering something about cake, as doctor Jackson and the three people that had already been examining the corps of the warrior return to the lab they had been working in.

"Its entire cellular structure appears to be less than sixteen days old, it is organic in nature but it was certainly grown in a lab." Say's Selmak/ Carter as he looks at the results on the computer.

"Well we've known for a while now that the Goa'uld have been attempting to prefect a host which is superior to that of a human." Says major Carter.

"Well from the reports I've heard in the last few days, I'd say that this thing is definitely as strong as a Zentradi without the use of a Flemenmik Nousjadel-Ger battle suit, but looking at it I'd say that it is far from being superior to that of you humans." Says Cochrane as he examines the results of the scans that he had sent back to the ship to get some input from doctor's Morse and Smith.

"Not to mention that traditionally the Goa'uld have always being somewhat… vain, when it comes to their appearance." Says Jackson after finishing his coffee from the briefing room.

"This was obviously intended to be a new form of foot soldier, maybe as a possible reaction to the recent uprising by the Jaffa, but what is the most interesting fact was that this, being was not alive when it was first grown, it was in fact given life once it had reached its fully grown and mature state."

"Sounds like Frankenstein's monster." Mutters both Cochrane and Jackson at the same time.

"Err dad, how do you know this?" Asks Carter.

"There are results of a very unique energy signature which was detected by the lieutenant's scans."

"Selmak?" Asks Jackson.

"Yes doctor, this signature is similar to that of the residual effects left behind by a sarcophagus." Said Selmak/ Carter as if he was reading a 1940's news report.

"Wait," They all asked at the same time, "could it even do that, give life to something that was in essence, never alive, to begin with?"

"No, a sarcophagus is designed to boost health, or heal someone who is terminally ill or has been mortally wounded. They are no were near powerful enough to be able to animate non-living cellular tissue."

"Theoretically what would be possible sir?" Asked Cochrane, the scientist in him coming to the front despite the fact that he was more of a weapons and armour systems expert.

"Thousands of years ago, a Goa'uld found a device which was originally created by the Ancients, he was able to determine that the primary purpose of the device was to heal, however, the device was so powerful that the effects on the host, be they human of Unas, proved to be divesting. However, after much experimentation, this Goa'uld was able to reverse engineer the technology so that he was able to construct the first sarcophagus." Selmak/ Carter informed them as if he was giving a history lesson.

"But if I had to guess, I'd say that this Goa'uld was unable to eliminate all of the negative side-effects of this device, right." Asked Jackson remembering how he had been addicted to the side effects years earlier.

"Correct, the Tok'ra have long sought this original device in the hope of using it to perfect the technology of the sarcophagus so that all could benefit from it. Now though I fear that this might be our only hope of defeating this new warrior."

"How so?" Asks Cochrane and Carter curiously at the same time, before it occurred to Cochrane. "With the original we could use it to develop a weapon which we could counter act the life generating properties of the device."

Quickly thinking over what had just been said about the devices history, Jackson asks. "Just out of curiosity who was the Goa'uld that first discovered the device?"

"He used the name Telchak." Says Selmak/ Carter with a quizzical look on his hosts face.

"Telchak," repeated Jackson as a possible lead comes to mind as he heads out of the isolation lab, "I think I might know where we might find some information on its location." Which gets the others to follow him.

A few moments later the group enter into Jackson's own lab which is in its usual cluttered state. "Nicholas Ballard, my erm, grandfather," says Jackson somewhat sheepishly, "one of his early obsessions was looking for the so called fountain of youth." He continues as he begins to look through the numerous books and journals on his selves. "He claimed that he had found out the location of the fountains power was a piece of alien technology which was used by the early Mayan tribes at some time around 900BC." Finding the old field journal which he was looking for half buried under a file with photos from SG6's recent mission to P9X-908, before turning back around to face the group that had gathered around his desk. "Nick traced the origins of the myth to Chaac, the Mayan god of rain."

"And you believe that this Chaac may have actually been Telchak?" Asks Selmak/ Carter.

"It's just a hunch."

"Maybe not so much of a leap." Says Carter leaning next to a pile of artefacts from one of the off world digs. "The primary function of the device was to heal the user."

"For the Ancients," Says Jackson, "for anyone else to see an effect it would have to be from a very low and limited exposure from a safe distance."

"Excuse me, but I have to ask who these Ancients are that you keep mentioning ma'am are?" Asks Cochrane, as he notices an artefact which looks like a proto-culture power cell.

"It's a long story," Says Carter, "but the short version of it is that they are the creators of the Stargate's and the first evolution of humans within the galaxy."

"Okay it sounds like they are the Praeambulus from back home."

"Pretty much Zee." Says Jackson, using the nickname that Cochrane had told everyone when he and McCloud had arrived and been introduced to everyone. "Anyhow, according to Nick's old field journal the device was hidden near a waterfall and a river. His field notes indicate that he believed that the temple was located somewhere in Central America. He, erm, spent decades of his life searching for it but he was ultimately unsuccessful. I've been going over his notes several time on and off for the last few weeks, and the majority of it is indecipherable."

"This is where I really wish I'd stayed awake back at the academy during xenoarcheology 101." Jokes Cochrane as he looks at some of the notes in the old field journal.

"This is written in a very old dialect of Goa'uld." Says Selmak/ Carter, as he takes the book off of Jackson and begins to read it while grabbing one of the pens and nearby notepads to start translating it.

-{[]}-

"So where is it?" Asks general Hammond as the small group, who had spent the last five hours examining every small reference, hint and myth that related to the fountain of youth and everything on Telchak/ Chaac, now sitting in his office.

"It's here." States Jackson excitedly, barely able to contain his excitement. "If the information which we translated with Selmak/ Carters and the lieutenant's help, then there is a good chance that the device is in southern Honduras."

"But how do you know that the device is still located there?"

"Well, erm, we can't be exactly certain, but erm…" started Jackson, clearly floundering now.

"We think that we have a lead on who created this super soldier sir." Says Carter, rescuing her team mate.

"This Telchak?"

"No sir."

"After Telchak created the first sarcophagus he and a rival Goa'uld went to war for possession of the original device, that rival was Anubis." Says Selmak/ Carter, once again in his teaching mode.

"This was long, long before he even tried to ascend with the help of Oma Desala." Injected Jackson as he scribbled some notes on a legal pad.

"Anubis defeated Telchak, but he was never able to locate the original device, it was believed by everyone from the System Lords and Ra to the Tok'ra and any number of minor Goa'uld under lords that it was hidden in one of the many temples that Telchak had." Continued Selmak/ Carter as if he hadn't been interrupted.

"You think that it is Anubis who is behind this?" Asks Hammond, suddenly wishing that he had retired before the stargate had reopened a little over seven years ago.

"Yes sir, it is but it is the most logical conclusion as he was aware of the technology, and if what Mr Selmak/ Carter says is correct and he was never able to locate the original device, it's my theory that he wouldn't require it." Says Cochrane before Jackson takes over.

"He would have gained access to the knowledge on how to create one when he was ascended and just built a new one in place of the original that he was never unable."

"But it's still just a guess though?"

All look at one another, confirming that they are all thinking of the same conclusion, and after a few seconds of having a silent conversation they all answered at the same time. "Yes."

"But it is a highly educated one based on all the research we've just done general." Says Jackson.

"The good news sir, is that the original Ancient device is most probably still here in Honduras." Says Carter before her SG1 teammate can go off on a rant about all the research he, lieutenant Cochrane and her dad had just done. "If we can locate it we could analyse how it works, once we know that then it might be possible to engineer some form of weapon for use in combating these warriors."

"Not to mention the possibility of being able to harness its healing properties." Says Jackson throwing in the civilian opportunities for the device.

"Very well then, doctor Jackson, Take doctor Lee see what you can find out."

"General sir, with your permission I'd like to contact the Archangel and see if I can continue assisting doctor Jackson in locating this device." Asks Cochrane.

"Its fine with me son, but only if commodore Hudson agrees to it."

"Yes sir." Responds Cochrane professionally.

"Dismissed." Says Hammond as the group leave his office to go their separate ways, with doctor Jackson heading off to the science wing of the base to find doctor Lee, the two Carters heading for the mess hall to grab a bite to eat while Cochrane headed down to the gate control room so that he could contact the Archangel which was in Luna orbit.

"Sergeant, could you please hail the Archangel please. I need to talk with commodore Hudson." Asked Cochrane as he walked over to sergeant Harriman who was in the control room, before noticing that the man was waiting to sit back down at his station where the general all-round fix-it man of the base, master sergeant Siler, is working.

"Yes sir." Says Harriman as he directs Cochrane over to a nearby computer that was currently un-used, "So Zee, what was with that meeting?"

"Long or short version?" Says Cochrane as Harriman begins to set up the link, "The gist of it is we may have a lead on the location of something to stop those Khyron spawn. I just need to get permission to go off base to help doctor Jackson track it down."

"Well if you don't get permission to leave the base, it's poker night at major Lorne's place if you fancy it?"

"I think…" Starts Cochrane as the face of commodore Hudson appears on screen. "Sir."

"Lieutenant Cochrane, having fun dirt-side?" Asks Hudson as he takes a sip of a raktajino.

"Yes sir, in fact that is the reason for this call. I'd like permission to accompany two scientist from the SGC to chase up on a lead to take out these warriors?" Asks Cochrane, before going over in brief about how they believed that they had been created. When he had finished he waited to hear what Hudson had to say.

"Ok lieutenant, just remember to keep an eye on kit, and have ensign McCloud remain at the SGC to be a liaison till you get back."

"Yes sir, thank-you." Said Cochrane and a moment later the connection was cut, and he was heading out of the control room after thanking Harriman on his way to the mess hall to get a bite to eat before heading off to find either doctor Jackson or doctor Lee.

* * *

_**Author's Note: I know that I have changed the time line of the series a little as Teal'c and Bra'tac encountered the warrior after the Prometheus was stranded in the gas cloud in 'Grace', but I personally think that the series was a little slow with regards to the Anubis arc so I have changed the timeline around a little so in my version of the timeline, it picks up after sg1 locate Daniel Jackson during 'Fallen' and 'Home Coming' but instead of the time line being about 6 months and major Carter is injured in 'Grace' I have shortened it to about six weeks to allow the crew of the Archangel help the SGC build up something more along the lines of a task force for defending earth.**_

_**Now don't worry I will still have SG1 racing around the galaxy to find out that they need to go back to Earth like in they did in 'Lost City', but it won't just be the Prometheus and a handful of F302's fighting against Anubis' fleet in earth orbit.**_


	8. Chapter 07: Treasure Hunting

**Chapter 07: Treasure Hunting**

After spending several days getting the correct clearances to enter Honduras from the US government and the government of Honduras, doctor's Jackson and Lee along with lieutenant Cochrane in appropriate civilian clothing walk into a small open air cantina in a village some twenty miles outside of Tegucigalpa.

"Are you sure that this is the place?" Asks a worried Lee, "I mean it seems a little rundown." he says as he looks around since he spends most of his time in a lab, and hasn't actually been on an archaeological dig before.

"Relax Bill, this is where he said he would be." Jackson said, smirking at how nervous he colleague is about being out in the field instead of his lab and not knowing that he worked in this area before joining the SGC.

"But what if he doesn't show up?" Asks Lee nearly panicking.

"Then we have a few bears, make some friends, and relax while having a good time." Cochrane says as he takes his rucksack off and sitting at one of the tables with Jackson.

"Hola! Muy Buenos Dias, caballeros. Una serveza? Una tequila?" Asked a man carrying a tray as he approaches the table, in Spanish.

"Um, de hecho. Estamos bescondo a una guia llamado Rogelio, et quedo de vernos aqui." Says Jackson also in Spanish, despite the fact that he is very rusty in it.

Which causes the man to shout into the inside of the cantina, "Pedro, hasta cargo, cuatro!" before he set his tray down and taking the remaining seat at their table. "I am Rogelio. Rogelio Duran at your service. This is just my day job, you must be doctor Jackson."

"That's right, this is doctor Lee and our research assistant Mr Cochrane." Said Jackson, using the cover for Cochrane that they had created for him while waiting to leave the SGC.

"Buenos Dias." Says Lee as he reaches across the table to shake hands with the younger man.

"Hi, and please call me Zee, Mr Cochrane makes me feel old or wonder if my father is behind me." Says Cochrane with a smile as he shakes hands with Rogelio after Lee.

"En catal. So," Says Rogelio as he rubs his hands together, "you fella's want to see some temples."

"Actually, we are interested in seeing one temple in particular." Says Jackson as he reaches into the top of his rucksack to remove his map, before looking at it and finding the spot he was looking for on it. "In this area."

"I'm sorry senor but I am afraid that you will find no temples in that area." Rogelio says as he looks at the general area of the map which Jackson was holding. "Now the north that is where you want to go, there are lots of ruins. My cousin has a truck we could be there in a matter of hours."

"Yeah, I'm sure that the temples in the north are great, but the area that we want to go to is here." Insists Jackson using his best 'Jack we are doing this' voice, not that Rogelio knew that.

"Senor, I have been to this part of the country many times, I tell you that there is nothing there." Says Rogelio looking slightly upset, "The north, I promise you that is where you want to go, trust me."

"Either you take us to this area in the south, or we will find someone who will."

"Ok, ok, ok, it's your money." He says trying to placate Jackson as Cochran made a move to get up.

"You said your cousin has a truck?" Asks Cochrane sitting back down, while fighting to keep a smirk off his face.

"Simone, his house is just around the block, of course there is the small issue of having a full gas tank." Says Rogelio which made Cochrane nearly spit his drink at the obvious ploy, while Jackson and Lee exchange a quick glance before Lee pulls out some money from his pocket and starts counting it.

After Lee had placed a few of the larger denomination notes on the table as he moved to put the money away. Just as he was turning his head he noticed that Rogelio was giving him the same sad look that a puppy would give, to which he just mouthed, 'you got to be kidding me', as he placed another large note on the table.

"Ok! Now where in business." Says an excited Rogelio getting up, "Let's go gentleman."

"Um, I'm going to need a receipt or…" Starts Lee before realising that he never going to get one and gives up.

Unknown to the group they had been watched by the leader of a local mercenary group that was scouting for wealthy business men to capture for ransom while he had been drinking his own bear.

-{[]}-

"If Anubis is the one that is truly behind this, then it is believed that it would be his plan to assassinate as many of the minor Goa'uld who are vulnerable to attack allowing him to absorb their equipment and Jaffa in preparation for his battle with the system lords." Says Bra'tac turning from his observations of the fortified embarkation room buried deep within Stargate Command.

"How many of these so called minor Goa'uld's have suffered from these types of attacks?" Asked Hammond as Bra'tac took a seat at the conference room table.

"At least three," Says Bra'tac, somewhat upset, "these new warriors are using tactics which are devastating to the Jaffa."

"I think," Started commodore Hudson, who had come down from the Archangel, "that we need to locate where these things are coming from. Do we have and intelligence which points in that direction?"

"No." Said Selmak/ Carter bluntly.

"It's the fears of the joint chiefs of staff that it's only a matter of time before Anubis shifts his focus back to Earth, and since where still building up our fleet they are a little nervous."

"I'm with them on that, even at maximum capacity my chief engineer says that it's going to be at least six standard months to have the fleet up to at least task-force standard level's." says Hudson.

"These beings are a threat to all that hope to one day see the universe free of the yoke of the Goa'uld and their oppression." Says Bra'tac sounding very much like the seasoned and battle-scarred warrior that he was.

"If doctor Jackson and lieutenant Cochrane's expedition to Honduras is successful and they can in fact recover the device…" started Hammond before being interrupted by Bra'tac.

"Even if they do, we have no guarantee that either the Tok'ra or the Zentradi can devise a viable weapon with which we can defend ourselves with against these warriors."

"From the report that lieutenant Cochrane submitted before left major, you have been unable to learn anything more than a very limited amount."

"Yes sir," Said Carter. "from our examination of both the warrior, its armour and weapons we have learnt only what was in the report that was submitted."

"The only way in which we can learn more is if we interrogate one of these warriors." Said Teal'c, speaking for the first time since the meeting had started.

"Which means that sometime soon we will need to launch a mission to capture one of them alive, sirs."

"Well whenever you decided to launch the mission general, I have an entire battalion of MACO ground assault troopers ready and waiting, not to mention a special-operation assault team that specialize in that sort of thing just sitting around on the Archangel I can transfer down to assist." Said Hudson.

-{[]}-

"What have we got major?" Asked Hammond as he and Hudson walked into major Carters science lab located on level nineteen of the underground base that is the SGC.

"Well sirs," Said Carter as she and a couple of scientist that had come down from the Archangel over the last few days to help out and upgrade the SGC's defences, "our latest tests show that the armour composite used by these warriors is resistant to both the strongest armour-piercing weapons from the armoury and as I stated earlier anything but capital ship grade energy weapons. However the under layer is made up of a close-knit fibre layer which is very similar to that of Kevlar body armour." Moving over to the table in the centre of the lab Carter picked up a small tranquiliser gun. "We think that something small and sharp, such as a nano-fine tipped Trinium dart, should be able to penetrate it." She said as she loaded a dart into the weapon that she had picked up before firing at the model which was wearing the undershirt of the warrior.

-{[]}-

"According to Bra'tac's sources, the fact that this Ramius is still alive will make him a very tempting target." Said Carter as she and colonel O'Neill headed towards the elevator bank heading for the mess hall, "The Jaffa fifth column is large enough that gaining access to the planet should be simple. The plan is to stake out the stargate on the planet, capture the warrior which comes through and exfil back to the SGC with the prisoner."

"What if one doesn't come through the gate?" Asks O'Neill as he swipes his access card through the reader to call the elevator.

"Well, we come home, I guess," Says Carter somewhat bashful, "however let's say that the intel that Bra'tac has is good, we meet with his contacts on the planet, set up a Tok'ra force field trap to contain the warrior then hit it with a tranquillizer that the Zentradi say can take down a rampaging Vajra."

Making a show of thinking on what ensign McCloud had told him about the Vajra before he realised that he may have spotted a flaw in the plan. "How does the tranquillizer dart pass through the shield?"

"There one way sir," Says Carter knowing what he though was most likely a flaw in the plan, "they are designed to keep things in not out."

"Oh right." Said O'Neill as the doors to the elevator opened allowing the pair inside.

"So what do you think?" Asked Carter knowing that her commanding officer was not really paying attention to what she had been saying, a point which was proven a few seconds later as the doors to the elevator where closing.

"Can I have some notes?"

-{[]}-

While all this was happening in Colorado, down in Honduras doctors Jackson and Lee together with lieutenant Cochrane and their guide Rogelio worked their way through the southern American jungle.

"Well according to the map, this is the right place but." Says Lee as he gestures wildly around him panting from lack of breath.

"This makes no sense. The research we used says that all fluid for life flows towards it." Says Jackson as he and the group entered a small clearing not even out of breath.

"Well how is that possible?" Asked Cochrane as pretended to fix his sunglasses, but activated a scanner that was built into them and scanned the area.

"Maybe… the device… has… special properties." Panted Lee "You know like a superstation… or it means that the flow of that waterfall we passed back there flows in the direction of the temple."

"Well it should be right here, but…" Said Cochrane trailing off as his scanners located the entrance to the temple less than a foot from where Lee was standing.

"Nobody ever listens to me man." Complained their guide, "I tell them that there are no temples out here, but they come out here anyways. Now the north, the north has roads, which we could have used to drive to any temple we want, but instead we're here traipsing through this jungle, walking."

"Alright we got it." Said Cochrane cryptically, so not to tip off their guide to the advanced nature of his sunglasses.

"Yeah, ok." Says Jackson, not catching on that Cochrane had already found it. "Let's look for a, erm, temple. In lieu of that a marker or totem of some kind. Anything which might tell us where to go." After a few seconds in which he didn't hear the sound of any movement he turned around to look at them. "Go." He said using his O'Neill stare.

Resigning to the fact that they would have to start looking around Lee and their guide started to move off as Cochrane calmly walks over to Jackson.

"Agh!"

Hearing the scream they all turned to see that Lee had fallen through the roof of the temple, which Cochrane was just going to inform Jackson about.

"Found it." Shouts Lee from down in the hole he had just fallen through.

-{[]}-

At the same time that doctor Lee was falling through the roof of Telchak's temple, light-years away from earth three members of the Archangel's special-operations force Devil Squad, SG1 &amp; 3 and several members of the Jaffa rebellion where walking down the path that they all felt would most likely be the one that the warrior would take in order to enter the pyramid and kill its target, Ramius.

"I believe that this would be the best spot for your plan, this path is the one that leads directly from the Chapa'ai to the pyramid which Ramius commands from." Said a young Jaffa to the assembled group, "I will go now to ensure that your eventual escape through the chapa'ai will be undetected."

"Brother." Says Bra'tac clapping the young warrior on the shoulder.

"Tek ma tee, Master Bra'tac. It is an honour to be in your service."

"Many thanks. Chel nok." Says Bra'tac as the young warrior turned and broke into a run to make good on his promise to the Jaffa master.

Once the young man was out of hearing range O'Neill said. "Right Carter do your thing."

"Yes sir." Says Carter as she moves off to star setting up the force-field.

"Reynolds, and Devil one, I want flanking set up on either side," Continued O'Neill as 'Devil One', otherwise known as lieutenant commander Welsh from the Archangel, began to move off towards the other two members of 'Devil Squad' on the mission, lieutenant Arnold Newman the squad's long-range weapons specialist and second in command and ensign Jake 'Rocky' Rockwell, their land-operations and explosive materials expert, switching to a private channel used by devil squad.

"Rocky, start setting up those capture mines you got."

"Yes boss."

"Newman over-watch full stealth till exfil."

"Got it." He said as he activated the built in tactical cloaking device of his sniper variant of the exo-frame used by the special forces of the Archangel.

"… claymores." Finished O'Neill.

"Not much faith in 'Plan A'?" Asked a sceptical Reynolds as Welsh turned back to face the pair.

"Since when has plan 'A' ever worked?" Asked O'Neill in mock seriousness.

"Right." Said Reynolds moving off as Welsh smirked behind the polarized view plate on helmet for the command variant of the same exo-frame as Newman and Rockwell.

-{[]}-

Picking up his canteen again which he had dropped when he fell through the roof of the temple, doctor Lee moves to the side to allow Jackson and Cochrane to lower themselves down into the passageway that they had just found.

"Watch that first step." Joked Cochrane, which made Jackson think of his SG1 team mate and how he joked at the smallest thing.

Ignoring this thought Jackson turned to his fellow scientist. "You ok Bill?" as they both turned on their right angled flash lights attacking them to their waists as Cochrane dropped down behind them, with his own touch already on, and still wearing his glasses which where tuning clear as if they had reaction lenses.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Well at least you were right when you said that the research was right about their being something here." He said as he shown his torch around, as he and Jackson spotted a very familiar looking circle on the floor behind Cochrane.

Looking back up towards the surface where they had just dropped down through at their guide Jackson said, "We're going to have a look around stay here ok."

"You got it senor. Have fun." He says waving to them and showing that he had a radio.

Half an hour later after following the main corridor and noticing the distinct lack of Goa'uld technology lying around lee commented, "Looks like this place has been picked clean by someone?" With a questioning tone.

"Well hopefully not completely, I mean there was still a set of transport rings back where we came in." Said Jackson leading them further into the temple like structure.

"Is this cramped thing getting to you guys?" Complains Lee, "I mean why make this passageway so narrow?"

"Maybe they were skinny people." Suggested Jackson with a sly half-smile.

"And the roof as well, Frack! My head. Deculture thank the maker that I ain't Macronized." Moans Cochrane rubbing the back of his head.

"Short, skinny people." Said Jackson thinking of Thor's people that he had meet a few years ago.

"It's a dead end." Said Lee as the team entered into a large chamber with no other exit.

"I don't get it." Says Cochrane as he once again activates the scanner function on them and looking around the chamber.

"There's nothing on the walls or ceiling, no other obvious ways out except for the way just came in, no glyphs, seals, Goa'uld writing, Ancient script not even a simple pictograph." Said Jackson a little disappointed since he knew that both the Goa'uld and the Ancient's seemed to suffer from hypergraphia.

"Isn't there always some writing?" Asked Lee, proving that he had seen one to many episodes of MacGyver. "You know, I mean somewhere." Which earned him a pair of stares, that would make even Teal'c proud, at their fellow tomb raiders dumbness, "or maybe not."

-{[]}-

Around the same time that the group in Honduras was entering the chamber in the temple, the stargate on the planet which Ramius had set himself up on activated and a single being stepped through, this being wasn't a normal person or a Jaffa but a super soldier and stopped just past the event horizon.

Once the gate had shut down the warrior began to head in the direction of the pyramid, and right into the trap that had been set up by the forces of the SGC. Once the warrior was out of hearing range the members of SG3 that had been left behind to monitor the gate radioed SG1

"Sierra Golf one nine, this is Sierra Golf three sierra. Target just came through the gate and is reroute to your location."

-{[]}-

Half a kilometre from the stargate the trap team heard this and began to prep their weapons, as O'Neill responded to the gate team, "Copy." before saying to everyone who didn't have a radio, mostly the Jaffa, "Right heads up." as he loaded the darts into the gun.

After about a minute the warrior came into the clearing they were waiting in, and right into the centre of the force field that formed the trap activating it. As soon as the field was activated O'Neill fired off three darts, which all three hit him but failed to knock it out.

"Carter?" Asked a shocked O'Neill that the warrior who was still standing.

"I don't know sir." Said an equally shocked Carter, who had seen just how powerful the creature was that Zentradi tranquilizer was designed to handle.

"Hit him again?"

"Negative colonel," Said Welsh, "That would kill him. The mission objective is capture not kill."

Just then the warrior reached out and touched the wall of the force field directly in front of him before passing right through it.

"Deculture!" Swore all the members of the Zentradi that where on the team, as O'Neill switched to the 50. calibre 'Ma Deuce' they had set up while everyone else opened up on it with weapons ranging from P90 and Jaffa staff weapons to Newman's SRS 99 anti-material sniper rifle, from a range of fifteen thousand meters, and the chest mounted plasma mini-gun and forearm mounted Gottfried's being employed by Rockwell and his 'Fire Force' assault weapons system he had deployed in.

Completely ignoring the amount ordinance which was coming at it the warrior took a couple of paces then opened fire on them, first taking out all of the Jaffa except for Bra'tac who managed to duck just in time, then on SG5 and devil squad who had taken cover behind a fallen log.

Seeing that it was no longer under fire it stared and started to walk off in search of its primary target.

"Fire in the hole!" Shouted O'Neill as he pressed the remote for the claymore anti-personal mines that had been set up in an attempt to disable the warrior. After the smoke cleared everyone was stunned to see that the warrior was still walking calmly through the mass of ball bearings. Seeing this lieutenant Welsh shouted out. "Stay Down!" as she tapped a button on her tactical-PADD of her mark three command exo-frame.

Instantly the whole area was bathed in white light so bright that it looked as if a small star had temporally descended on the clearing as the Zentradi anti-riot capture mines exploded similar to how the a standard flash-bang grenade would only a million times more powerful. When the glare from the capture mines had died down and they could see again, to say that the members of devil squad were stunned would be an understatement, in the middle of the steaming area which had just been turned in to a small sun in terms of brightness and heat, walked the warrior as it hadn't even been in the area before the capture mines had gone off, totally ignoring the combined forces as a death glider flew over their location and the sound of gun-fire could be heard coming from the direction of the stargate.

"Devil one, your positions been made." Said Newman. "I count at least a company size force maybe two, inbound E.T.A. six zero seconds."

"Alright, grab the wounded and fall back to the gate." O'Neill ordered while activating his radio, "SG3 sierra, dial the gate, we're aborting the mission."

"Negative," Came the response over the radio, the sound of weapons fire even more evident, "we have majorly pissed off unfriendly Jaffa forces closing on our position. We can't hold the gate. Repeat the stargate is not secure."

"Soon we will be surrounded." Says Bra'tac having heard the response from the force by the gate. "If we fight many more of us will die." As yet another death glider over flew their position.

"What do you suggest then sir." Asked Newman having come back from the location that he had been at in over watch of the whole operation as it went slowly FUBAR and joined O'Neill, Bra'tac and Welsh while Rockwell was helping the wounded by applying some of the military grade bacta-gel he had to their wounds.

"Surrender." Says Bra'tac full of conviction in his plan. "If we do there is a chance that the rebel Jaffa on this world can free us later."


	9. Chapter 08: Kidnapped in the Jungle

**Chapter 08: Kidnapped in the Jungle**

Underground in the same chamber that the trio of tomb raiders had been in for the last hour or so, all practically jumped out of their skin when they are called over the radio by their guide. "Zeeeee? Doctor Jackson? Doctor Lee?" he says sounding very relaxed.

Realising that he has the radio next to him Jackson picks it up, "Yeah, we're still here. We found a chamber down here, this could take a while."

"Oh don't worry senor's, take your time." He replies just as relaxed.

Hearing how relaxed he is the other two look over towards Jackson who merely shrugs as he turns the radio back to stand-by, "Well we are paying him by the hour." which caused the others to laugh a little, before getting back to work.

"I don't get this," Complains Lee, "I mean how are we supposed to find this thing if there are no clues at all?" Clearly showing his announce at their lack of progress and their current surroundings.

"I know right," Agrees Cochrane still fiddling with his scanner function on his glasses, "I'm getting nothing it's like there is something generating a dampening field, but even then it should still show where its power source is." Frustrated at his results.

"All water flows towards it." Mutters Jackson absentmindedly and as if he was talking to himself.

"So?" Both Lee and Cochrane at the same time making him realise he had said it allowed instead of just in his head.

"Someone pass me a canteen?" he asks an idea suddenly forming in his mind.

"Wait I get it." Says Cochrane as it suddenly dawns on him what Jackson was planning as he reached over to pass him Lee's canteen.

Gratefully accepting the canteen which he had just been passed to him without any arguments and unscrewed the top as he moved so that his back was against the wall opposite to the entrance that they had come through. After making sure that he was backed up as far as he could, he turned Lee's canteen upside down and drained all of the contents on to the floor, while Cochrane took his scanner glasses off and placed them in his back pocket while they all watched as the water first began to pool, then start to run up the slight incline to the chambers floor towards the centre.

"You're good." Said Lee in awe at the other man's skill while Jackson laid down on the floor.

"There's something under here." He said with his ear on the floor.

-{[]}-

After retuning back to where they had dropped in to get a set of pry bars from their packs, Cochrane re-entered the chamber, just as Lee and Jackson just about finished finding the edges of the hidden chamber underneath where they were. Several minutes later and a lot of straining the three explores managed to prise the stone up carefully.

"Well… at least it… has some writing… on it." Pants Lee when they had finally managed to get the cover stone off.

"Yeah." Said an equally exhausted Jackson as he lent over the opening into the chamber they had opened.

"What does it say?" Asked Cochrane showing no sign that he had just helped lift the heavy cover stone.

"I have no clue?"

"Oh," Lee and Cochrane said as their shoulders slumped a little before Lee began to reach down into the chamber they had just uncovered.

"Wait!" Warned Jackson making Lee freeze almost touching the device. "This thing is the root of the sarcophagus technology, which in and of itself has been confirmed to cause madness and is highly addictive. This is supposed to be at least one thousand times more powerful, so if it is activated it would be very, very, very bad."

"Oh!" Lee says as he slowly begins to pull his hands away from the device.

"Let's just try and lift it out of there without touching it too much."

"If you two wouldn't mind hurrying up, this stone is getting heavy." Said Cochrane as a small bead of sweet formed on his face, and a hint of announce in his voice.

"Sorry." Jackson says as he and Lee reach back in and carefully remove the device from its hidden chamber.

As soon as the device was out of the hidden chamber the whole room began to fill with a deep rumbling sound seconds before the cover stone that Cochrane was holding pulled from his grip and snapped shut. "Deculture!" muttered Cochrane.

"I think running would be a good idea right about now." Jackson says a split second before thousands of gallons of water came crashing out of hidden vents around the ceiling and began to flood the chamber.

-{[]}-

Back outside by the entrance to the temple that the trio where in their guide was lightly dozing, but woke with a start when he felt the ground start to rumble, grabbing the radio he scrambles over to the entrance lying down flat just as the water starts to be heard rushing in. "Doctor Jackson!" he shouted into the hole holding the near his head, "Can you hear me!" before shouting directly into the hole, "DOCTOR JACKSON!"

-{[]}-

As the water was gushing into the temple in Honduras, the small force of SG1 &amp; 3, Bra'tac and Devil squad are all waiting in the cell that the forces of Ramius had thrown them into when they had surrendered after their failed attempt at capturing the super solider.

"How's he doing?" Asked O'Neill as he looked over to where Carter and Rockwell were changing the dressing and bacta-gel on the wounded major Reynolds.

"Stable sir, but we need to get him out of here and back to base, ASAP." Says Rockwell while Carter was holding the fresh dressing on to Reynolds.

"I'm fine sir." Says Reynolds, wincing with pain from the staff blast that had hit him while trying to act a tough guy in an attempt to impress Welsh.

Suddenly from outside of their cell the members of the team all hear the tell tail sound of an approaching Jaffa squad, after about five seconds of hearing the rhythmic approach of the Jaffa squad the door to the holding room opened and Ramius walked in surrounded by a squad of six Jaffa all armed with staff weapons and a Zat'nik'tel.

"I'll handle this." O'Neill says as he moved to the front of the cell with both Teal'c and Bra'tac who had sub-concisely taken a flanking position on his left and right. "Greetings," he said cheerfully, "well, um I know how this looks so I think that it would be better if we were to clear up any sort of misunderstandings you have straight away. We didn't come here to kill you," before turning and facing everyone else in the cell and asking, "am I right?"

Those that weren't seeing to the wounded and nodded and muttered a half assed 'yep', not really gaining that much support. Realising that they really hadn't sold it he mouthed a sarcastic 'Thanks' before turning back to face Ramius and his honour guard.

"In fact, and this is the funny thing, we actually come to save you from being killed. Do you see the irony?"

Without even appearing to breath Ramius continued to glare at the capture team.

"Anyhow," O'Neill said, realising that he wouldn't get anything out of this particular Goa'uld, he continued, "there is this guy out there, a specially created type of Ashrak we think has been made by Anubis, who's dressed all in black who is none too fond of you Goa'uld's but the point is that he is the one we're after not you. So if you would like to let us go we will just be on are way. You're not buying this are you."

With a shake of his head and a flash of his eyes Ramius abruptly turns around and marches off and shouting "Jaffa KREE!" in the double flanged voice that all of the Goa'uld seemed to speak in.

When the outer door to the holding room closed again the group all sighed and released the breath that many of them hadn't realised they were all holding. The room was silent for several moments before Rockwell muttered, "That went well."

"That went well." O'Neill remarks flippantly as Newman smacks the back of the land-operations warfare specialist head, and making everyone smile just a little even the two Jaffa that were with them.

After a few more moments of silence Bra'tac turned to face O'Neill. "Your friends condition worsens." He says indicating the now shivering form of major Reynolds while Carter and Rockwell tried to stabilise him.

"Well your friends can show you anytime now." Replies O'Neill cryptically so as not to alert the Jaffa that where guarding them that there was members of the Jaffa fifth column with in their own forces, while still looking at the still open door-way just beyond their cell.

"We must consider that they may not."

Hearing this O'Neill spun around to face the aged Jaffa master and studied his face for a few seconds to see if he was trying to pull his leg. "Really?"

With a slight nod of his head he replied in a forced humour. "At least we are alive."

"Yes if you call this living."

"You're worried that once the super-solider has killed Ramius, it's just going to turn around and start killing everyone or set off a bomb, sir?" Asked his SG1 team mate major Carter, who was taking a break from working on the now stable Reynolds.

"Super-solider?" O'Neill repeated doing a decent impression of Teal'c.

"Why not?" Shrugs Welsh as she scanned the room with her tac-pad discreetly.

"It has a ring to it."

"It is most likely that the warrior is only after Ramius," Suggests Teal'c from where he had just sat down to begin his daily kelnorim, despite the fact he no longer carried a symbiote, "when we attached and attempted to capture it, it was most likely only concerned with escaping so that it could complete its mission."

"That's logical."

"So what, we just sit around and wait while what, Ramius gets eliminated?" Says O'Neill questioningly. "Then what?" Before looking around and noticing that the members of Devil squad had a look in their eyes, one that he had seen many times on his SG team mates many times, just before they broke out of a prison cell on any number of times.

"Lieutenant?" Said Newman, realising that their quiet conversation in Zentron had been noticed.

"That mission on Hamilton III, the Event Horizon rescue operation."

"The one where Mandel and Garb ended up stealing that proto-type fighter from the Shadow Force to give us cover?" Said Rockwell, knowing that his team mate ensign Ace McCloud would be grateful for maintaining his cover.

"Think it would work?" Said Welsh still fiddling with her tac-pad discreetly.

"Not with this many wounded and no intelligence on the layout of the place."

"Well in that case," Says O'Neill acting like a big kid that all those from the SGC knew he wasn't, "Hay," he shouted to the closest of the Jaffa guarding them, who just ignored him, making O'Neill a little pissed, "What a little conversation going to kill you?" The guard continued to just stare straight ahead and completely ignore the group, further pissing O'Neill off. "Look," he said just about keeping his cool, "I know that you are all about loyalty, I get that I do theres…"

"SILENCE!" shouted the guard as he removed his own Zat'nik'tel.

"Teal'c?" O'Neill says moving out of the way of his SG1 team mate as he was still recovering from being hit by a stray shot when they were captured.

"Hear me Jaffa," Says the former first prime in a very low, almost whispering voice, "you're master is a false god and he will surely be defeated soon. However you still have a chance to be free."

"Your words mean nothing to me. I know who you are," Says the guard who was subconsciously stroking the activation stud on his Zat'nik'tel, "Teal'c and Bra'tac the shol'vas. O'Neill and SG1, 3 and 5 of the Tau'ri. Assassins who believed that they could slay my master."

Just then the sound of distant and multiple staff weapons being fired at something followed by the sounds of people running.

"Just a quick question for you. If were all the assassins and were locked up in here, then who's that shooting up the place?" Asked Welsh pointing out the door towards where they could hear the sounds of the fight going on, although those that where conscious had already figured it out.

"Consider this," O'Neill asks of the guard that they had decided to try and turn against the Goa'uld, "does this at all sound like it is at all as if it is going well up there?"

"Your master will be soon slain, as will you if you do not free us." Says Teal'c.

"You are lying. My master is a god! He is invincible."

"Oh Deculture," muttered Welsh just loud enough to be heard by O'Neill, Teal'c and the guard, while she rolled her eyes, "this idiot is as indoctrinated as a member of the Disciples of Zor." and earning a groan of annoyance from Newman and Rockwell.

After about a minute of the fire fight they heard an announcement in Goa'uld over the internal communications system. "Jaffa Kree! Intercept the intruder and kill it!" Hearing this several of the guards left leaving only the guard that they were trying to turn against the Goa'uld.

"You're next you know." Says O'Neill sarcastically as the remaining guard becomes noticeably more worried.

Seeing this Teal'c decided to twist the proverbial knife deeper. "Ramius will force you to die for him while he attempts to escape."

"My god will fight for his people."

"You are wrong my friend. Your god is somewhere hiding, cowering, in fear like a little child at the sound of thunder. I have seen it before many times, he will not think to sacrifice all if your lives so that he can flee and save his own skin." Says Bra'tac almost laughing at the guard's faith in the Goa'uld, before the final guard swallows hard and runs out of the room.

"Hay! What about us?" O'Neill shouts at the man's retreating form, before facing both Teal'c and Bra'tac, "You know it should be getting easier not harder to convince these fella's to join the fifth column?"

"Sir?" Shouts Carter as she gets another field dressing out and places it on Reynolds wound, while Rockwell gets another bacta-gel pouch out to treat the wound.

"Hang in there Reynolds." Orders O'Neill.

"As long as it takes." Reynolds through another wave of pain.

Several minutes later the sound of a single person approaching their cell, fearing that it was the warrior the group back-up away from the entrance to the cell. Seeing that it was the young warrior that they had been trying to convince to switch sides.

"Ramius has fallen." He says as he opens the cell using the remote on his gauntlet. "Go no quickly before this demon comes for you." Handing his Zat'nik'tel to Teal'c.

"Go, go!" O'Neill says as SG3 &amp; 5 move to get the wounded while Devil squad move to cover the entrance, "Come on let's go, let's go!" once everyone is out if the cell O'Neill notices that the guard is still standing there. Realising that the man's very religious belief has just been shattered by what he has seen and that he is in shook, O'Neill takes pity on the man and gestures for him to move and come with him. "You too, come on." He says in a much gentler tone than when he was ordering the capture force to move.

-{[]}-

At around the same time that the capture force are escaping from Ramius jail, Rogelio is screaming into the hole which leads into the hidden underground temple.

"CAN YOU HEAR ME!"

After a few more seconds in which the entrance to the chamber fills up with water and the last of the air bubbled to the surface he sat down and began to pray silently for the souls of those that had just drowned. He was halfway through the prayer when he is shocked as Jackson broke through the surface and climbed out of the hole before Lee climbed out and collapsed as Cochrane trust through the surface.

"Are you ok?" Asked Rogelio worriedly as he picked the artefact up. "I thought that all of you were dead for sure senor?"

"We triggered some kind of automated trap." Jackson says coughing some of the water out of his lungs.

"That… was… fun." Panted Cochrane hauling himself out of the water as Rogelio casually picked up the artefact.

"What is it that you've found?" He asks looking at the device, he was so engrossed in the device that he didn't realise someone was behind him as Lee, Cochrane and Jackson all started to stand raising their hands. "Don't worry senor's, I'm not going to rob you." Before realising what's about to happen as he mentally starts to berate himself as he slowly turns around muttering to himself. "Hastia, Modre de Dias."

-{[]}-

"Look if this is some sort of turf thing you've got going on that we aren't aware of we're sorry." Says Jackson as the group are lead blindfolded deeper into the jungle.

"Oh no, senor. Please don't speak." Pleads Rogelio from the back of the group with his hands on the shoulders of Cochrane.

"I'm just saying that whoever you guys think that we are, we're not."

"Who do you think I 'think' you are?" Says one of the rebels at the back who was the leader.

"I don't know, we're scientists, archaeologists' in fact." Jackson says, holding onto Lee's shoulders, "I'm just saying in fact, that is this is a kidnapping, which is what I'm guessing this is, then you should know that we are not worth anything."

"Trust me gringo! Everyone is worth something to somebody."

The group continue on for a few more seconds before Jackson deliberately trips Lee. "I tripped, I'm sorry." Says Lee as he struggles to get back up complaining, "Geez I can't see anything."

Pulling down his own blindfold so he can see again Rogelio takes a quick look around to get his bearings before he makes a break for it away from everyone else, making it a hundred yards from the trail before he is noticed by the rebels.

"Chalo!" Shouts the leader of the rebels pointing to the fleeing form of their captive's native guide who was now zigzagging in order to try and avoid all the fire from the rebels.

"ARGH!" He screams as Cochrane and Jackson both duck to avoid the fire and maintain their cover as simple scientist, and not a frontline specialist of a covert mission and an alien scientist that was working with him that were looking for an alien artefact.

"What… what just… happened?" Asked Cochrane pretending to be scared at the sound of all the weapons fire.

"Your guide gringos, he tried to run. What can you do?" Jokes the leader getting a few small laughs from the other rebels. "Maybe now we will all stay on the path eh muchachos?"

Grabbing Cochrane under the arm and pulls him roughly up as the other rebels do the same with Lee and Jackson and starts them walking again.

-{[]}-

Entering into one of the chambers within the pyramid the team spot all of their equipment, weapons and tactical vests are all on a table. As the team are putting the last of their equipment back on they noticed that across the hall was a corridor which was filled with the bodies of fallen Jaffa.

Deciding that they might have a way gaining some intelligence at the very least which would make up for their lack of capturing the warrior, after walking carefully for several minutes until they entered a ring room where there was several more Jaffa laying slain while trying to protect Ramius as he attempted to activate the rings.

"Ouch." Says O'Neill looking at the plasma riddled body of Ramius and all the dead Jaffa.

"It would seem that Ramius was attempting to get away using one of his many Alkesh." Says Teal'c bending down to examine the rings for damage.

"Sir, I think that we still might have a chance to capture the warrior and complete the mission." Says Carter looking at the rings from her position next to the controls for the rings.

"How?" O'Neill, Teal'c and Bra'tac ask.

"Easy sir." Says Rockwell catching on to the major's plan. "We steal the ship that this guy was going to use to escape, stick him in the cargo hold with no life support, right ma'am." Asks Rockwell aiming his shoulder mounted plasma cannon down the adjacent hall.

"Yes."

"Do it, T go with'em." O'Neill orders. "Everyone else fall back to the gate and get the wounded back to the SGC for treatment."

-{[]}-

Less than a minute later Teal'c was flying the recently liberated Al'kesh bomber back to the path which lead back to the stargate while major Carter was standing-by at the controls for the on-board ring platform with ensign Rockwell covering the hatchway with his shoulder mounted plasma cannon.

Activating the rings the warrior is brought up into the sealed cargo hold. "Transport complete." Carter says just as there is a loud bang on the sealed door.

"Carter did you get him?" O'Neill asks over the radio, while Rockwell began to sub-consciously starts stroke the firing stud on his trained weapon.

"Yes sir, we got him."

"Good job, oh and ensign Rockwell, lieutenant Newman says 'stay frosty it's not a knight' whatever that means." Replies O'Neill as Teal'c begins to pilot the Al'kesh out of the atmosphere and into low orbit.

-{[]}-

"Chino! Jose! Ven para aca." The leader of the rebels shouts as he prods the back of Cochrane with his AK-47 as he leads the trio into their camp. "That's for enough! Hay gringo's." As he throws Cochrane into a small shack with Jackson and Lee both of whom still had their hands bound like Cochrane.

"You know I don't know what you are expecting but no one is going to pay you anything for us." Says Jackson as he rolled to sit up and fighting down the urge to fight his way out like he would with the Goa'uld.

"He's right," Says Cochrane, using all of his self-control not to lunch him-self at the smug man before him and snap his neck like a twig. "we're just a bunch of scientist, we are worth nothing."

"Oh, that is unfortunate… for you." Says the leader of the rebels eliciting a small chuckle from the rest of the rebels, "because if no one pays up, then you will never leave here alive I guarantee that."

-{[]}-

"It's still unconscious?" Asks general Hammond as he, commodore Hudson and major Carter stepped of the Argo multipurpose transport which had just brought them up to the Archangel after returning with the captured warrior.

"Yes sir, although it's not surprising given that we sucked all of the air out of the cargo hold and went into low orbit with Teal'c's prize. In fact it took ten minutes and several heavy stun blasts from devil land operations." Reports Carter.

"I'm surprised…" States Hudson when the intercom calls him.

"Bridge to commodore Hudson!"

Taking out his personal communicator, Hudson opens it, "Hudson here. What's the problem chief Benshoff?"

"A vessel just… de-folded… and is hailing us. They are requesting to know who we are and why we are currently in Earth orbit." Came the reply.

"Is it the Goa'uld again?" Hudson asked as the group made their way towards the nearest turbo lift, away from ARMD 1's hanger deck.

"Negative sir," said sub-commander Dvorak breaking into the comm-link, "it doesn't match anything that we know of."

"We're on our way, Hudson out." Hudson said as the group enter into the lift.

Seconds later the doors opened onto the security corridor behind the bridge. As the assembled group walked in the MACO at the door stiffened slightly about to come to attention only to be waved off as Hudson moved to his command chair. "Report." He ordered as he sat down.

"Unknown alpha is sitting directly ahead of us, sir." Reported captain Hill sitting in for lieutenant commander Welsh at tactical, "Their shields and weapons are on hot stand-by."

"On screen."

The main tactical display shimmered as it switched from the view of the dark side of Luna to the image of the Thurvel-Salan sized ship in front of the Archangel.

"Oh crap." Carter mutters.

"Friends of yours?" Asks Dvorak raising an eyebrow as she turn to face the two humans from the SGC.

"Yes, sorry ma'am. Can you hail them?" Carter asks getting a nod from Hammond.

Hudson turns to the comm-station and gives the crewmember on duty to open a channel. "Channel open sir."

"This is major Carter of SG1 to Asgard vessel, hold fire." Carter said using her best diplomatic tone and smile.

"It is agreeable to see you again major Carter" Said the small grey alien that appeared on the screen.

"Thor it's good to see you." Says Carter.

"Major Carter, the vessel you are on is not of ant Tau'ri design of which I am aware of, and its technology is greatly superior to your own." Thor replies clearly shocked by the information his scans had revealed.

"Yes well about that, we have made some new friends." Carter replies with a slight shrug.

"I see." Thor says clearly impressed, "Than I can assume that their actions are not hostile?"

Carter nods as she steps to the side allowing Hudson to take her place, "I am commodore Kira Hudson of the Zentradi Macross Fleet vessel Archangel." He said introducing himself.

"I am Thor, supreme commander of the Asgard fleet. This is my personal flagship the O'Neill class battleship Jack O'Neill." Thor responded with a slight bow of his head, "I am afraid that I am unaware of any race called the… Zentradi."

Hudson smiled slightly, while mentally laughing that this first contact had gone much better than it did with the Goa'uld. "That's understandable supreme commander as don't exactly come from around here, I was just about to have a meeting with general Hammond and major Carter about our origins, you are welcome to join us." He said.

"I would very much like that."

"Should we send a shut…" Hudson began when there was a bright bluish white flash next to him.

Seeing this the MACO at the entrance hatch sprang to attention before shouting. "SUPREME COMMANDER ON DECK!"

At this action Thor was momentarily stunned, as he had not had that kind of response to his entrance in centuries, before returning the salute which Hudson was giving him. "Shall we begin?" He said as he looked around the bridge.

"Right this way sir." Hudson said, sweeping his arm to the side and directing the group to the observation room behind the bridge. "Care to join us sub-commander?"

Dvorak nodded and made her way to the observation lounge.

"You have the bridge captain Hill, major Sisko you're with me." Hudson said as he followed their guests.

Hill took a seat in the command chair and frowned. She would bring it up with the commodore when they're guests had departed, but something was bothering her. This… Thor… had transported himself directly on to the bridge, and while that in of itself wasn't a huge deal, the thing which was upsetting her was that they had the shields active at the time.

These Asgard it seems had the technology to actively transport through their shields.

-{[]}-

As he entered the observation lounge the first thing that Hudson noticed was general Hammond looking out window at the Asgard ship which was just visible around the curve of the Luna surface. Carter and Thor were looking at the models of all the ships which had been called Archangel. They're was everything from an old Prometheus class semi-submersible assault carrier up to the last ship to bear the name which bared a striking similarity to the one that they were one, but clearly of an older design.

Hudson smiled at the three visitors and nodded to the MACO commander to resume his post out on the bridge. He nods and leaves allowing Hudson to spot the two additional MACO's that where taking up position on the other side of the door.

After a few minutes everyone sat down at the table as a yeoman came in with a tray with five glasses and a jug of water.

"Supreme commander, I hope that simple water is safe for your species." He said as the yeoman placed the tray in the centre of the table.

Thor gave the Asgard equivalent of smile at the simple act of kindness. "It is, thankfully the Asgard as a race are levo-amino like that of humans." He noticed Hudson had a raised an eyebrow in a look of curiosity. "Though the Nox, a friend of both the Tau'ri and the Asgard, are dextro-amino based."

Hudson nodded. "I'll keep that in mind sir, if they ever have a meal on-board. We've met a few races who are based on a dextro-amino DNA in our corner of the universe."

"And where is that exactly?" Asked Hammond as he sipped his water.

"That will take some explaining," Hudson said shaking his head, "I can share some portions of our database with you to provide proof, but… we're not exactly from this galaxy, the local group."

Thor's eyes widened as he tried to comprehend that humans from beyond the local group! That was insane… yet he remained himself of the unusual readings his ship had picked up when he had dropped out of hyperspace.

"Go on."

"There was once a race known as the Triolian who could measure their space faring history in the hundreds of thousand centuries. They were explorers, scientist, completely dedicated to furthering their knowledge of the universe. At one point during Earths dark ages, they had dispatched an expedition to explore the local group. They discovered the earth at some time around three hundred BC. At that time, the Roman republic were in ascendancy but the Triolian's held Earth under observation and study for a few centuries. They eventually decided to influence the romans into a more positive way and began impersonating the Roman gods using their extremely advanced technology." Hudson said as he paused for a moment, taking a sip of his own water. "With the rise of Christianity, the Triolians feared that their long-term experiment was endangered, and so they pretty much abducted entire villages of their 'chosen' and people from other areas all over the earth to get a pretty diverse gene pool going. They then took them back to the Triolian home galaxy to continue the 'experiment'." Hudson chuckled humourlessly at this, "They even Terra-formed and engineered a second Sol system for their 'Taken' in a sector of space near their homeworld."

Carter visibly considered this story for a moment, it was true that many of the people in the galaxy had been abducted by the Goa'uld before they had left earth following the revolt by the ancient Egyptians. Clearly these Triolians didn't care about 'interfering' in the affairs of other races. Hudson spotted this on the faces of Carter and Thor and nodded to Dvorak.

"The Triolians had tried maintaining their surveillance of Earth, supreme commander," Dvorak spoke for the first time since the meeting had started. She tapped the controls next to her on the table. "Perhaps you'll recognize them in their natural form." The screen at the rear of the room activated and the image of a tall grey skinned Centaur…it was a Roswell grey!

"They became interested in Earth when they detected the detonation of your first nuclear weapons, unfortunately their survey craft malfunction and they crashed in Roswell New Mexico." Dvorak explained.

"Did the Triolian's inform you of your true origins?" Thor queried.

"Yes, once Zentradi Earth reached the correct level of development, when we achieved faster-than-light travel in the form of hyper-fold travel. They also shared everything that's happened to you earth, although the information is only current to about the mid-nineties, since it takes an awfully long time to travel from home and here. It's a pleasant surprise to see that you've made allies with other races and a basic FTL, even if it is rather slow."

"If… it is such a long journey, why are you here?" Thor asked, trying to come to terms with the fact that these people considered hyperspace travel like he did with the ships of the Goa'uld.

"Our presence in the milky-way is an accident," Hudson explained further, "as you have no doubt surmised the Archangel is a warship. Well, we were at war fighting alongside the Triolians and other allies, like the sub-commanders people, against an implacable foe, and in the course of one of the battles we were forced to use an experimental weapon on our enemies. When it detonated a displacement wave reacted with our FTL matrix giving it a boost… the result was the forced activation of an emergency fold but the drive system was boosted so much that our speed was amplified to such an extent, that we covered a journey that at FTL should have taken close to a thousand million years in a matter of minutes."

"And you ended up in the Milky-way? That's a slight coincidence…" Hammond asked knowing that SG1 had the worst luck when it came to first contacts with aliens.

"We ended up close, a few hundred light-years out above the galactic z-plane." Dvorak explained, "We had just located a planet with the right minerals which we needed to repair the ship and was uninhabited to set down and make repairs, when we detected your ship limping into the system."

"I see." Hammond said, he felt like he would need a few days just to get all his thoughts straight before he even attempted to write his report for the Pentagon on this one. "So if I may be so bold, what sort of assistance are you willing to give to us, besides what you've already offered?"

"Well for starters," Dvorak said having already discussed this with Hudson and the other senior staff, "we can help to upgrade that glorified flying missile ship of yours into something that at the very least resembles a space combat vessel, secondly we will jump start your space based defences and designs for a fleet of ships to the SGC. These designs are older than that of the current ships used by the Macross Fleet but they are good designs, the designs are Drake class frigates, Nelson class battle cruisers and their variant the Acidalium class battleship as well as a practical carrier class design, since what we have seen so far that everyone local likes their space fighters, in the form of the Minerva class battle carrier and their respective support craft." Dvorak said as images of the said ships appeared as a hologram above the table.

-{[]}-

While Hammond, Carter, Thor, Dvorak and Hudson where discussing about their origins and how they can help to upgrade the earths very limited defences when it came to orbital attacks in the main observation lounge of the Archangel. Down in a holding cell of the SGC was the warrior, who had been removed from all but its armour's under suit, was chained to the wall with a heavy guard from the SGC and Rockwell who had switched from his basic fire-force weapons system to the more powerful Detonator mini-destroid weapons system.

Stepping forward so that he was merely inches from the warrior's face Bra'tac stares into the milky-white eyes of the being, before beginning the interrogation of the warrior. "Whom do you serve? Speak!"

With a very deep throaty sounding voice, that sounded as if it was an engine starting up with how gravelly it was, the warrior confirms what everybody present with in the nearby observation room was fearing. "I serve Anubis!"

Stepping back Bra'tac moved to allow executor Granger, who had come down from the Archangel at the request of the SGC, to take over. "How and why where you created?"

The warrior merely groans in response to the question as it strains against the restraints which were holding it against a sheet of armour used on the Archangel, which was charred and melted around the edges, with magnetic restraints active and nano-welded on to the battlefortress grade armour plate. Realising that their questioning would get them no were Bra'tac and Granger leave the interrogation room and moved into the observation room across the hallway from the holding cell.

"I think it is safe to assume that we are not going to get anything out of it using traditional techniques." Says Granger entering the room to which Welsh, still in her command exo-frame, shivered slightly catching the hidden meaning to the Lantean's words. "So what have we found out that's new Devil One."

"Well the initial scans of both the host and the Goa'uld symbiote have shown that they both have below normal brain-wave patterns, basically he has all of the strength and healing powers of a normal Goa'uld without any of the normal personality traits that we've come to know and love." Says the SGC's chief medical officer doctor Janet Fraiser. "Also the Goa'uld have been known to use very sophisticated brain washing techniques, they've even shown the ability to program the humanoid brain to be a unsuspecting agent called a zartarc."

"Since I've got none of my normal… equipment, I'm open to suggestions." Says Granger, wishing that he had taken some of his personal toys with him on his assignment to watch Dvorak when she returned to the active service within the fleet aboard the Blood Haze.

"What about a Hansa mind sifter?" Asks Welsh.

"I've got none with me, plus I doubt that they would work."

"There is one thing," Says Selmak/ Carter, "we may be able to use the Tok'ra memory-recall device, and modify it so that we can access any images in its conscious mind as it thinks them."

"I'll let the general know." O'Neill says as he leaves the observation room, heading back to Hammond's office since the general was getting a tour of the Archangel. As O'Neill reaches the elevators Granger catches up to him.

"Colonel O'Neill sir, is there any word on the team sent to South America?"

"None," Replies O'Neill swiping his identification card in the access reader, "Doctors Jackson &amp; Lee and lieutenant Cochrane are now six hours overdue for their last scheduled check in."

"That doesn't sound like Mr Cochrane, he's a stickler for the rules from what I've been told."

"Well the state department have said that, and I quote, 'The Honduran government is investigating their disappearance', they've sent some people to the last reported location, but so far they have found nothing."

-{[]}-

Down in north Nicaragua, about ten kilometres from the border with Honduras, the leader of the rebels that had taken Jackson, Lee and Cochrane hostage walks out of the hut that he uses and stretches. "Listos?" He shouts as he walks over to the small hut which he had thrown Lee, Jackson and Cochrane and unbars the door. "I know that it is not much, but we do the best with what we have." He says before he reaches forward and uses a combat knife to cut the ties on their wrists. "So… here is my proposal for the three of you, I will ask the questions and you will provide me with answers. If I believe you, then you will get more water, more food and even maybe an extra blanket or two at night, okay?"

The three nod while rubbing their wrists.

"Ok… so who do work for?"

"I told you. We are archaeologists…" Starts Jackson only to be kicked in the gut by the rebel leader.

"Maybe I was not so clear since English can be a funny language sometimes, if I don't believe you or I think that you are lying then things can get very, very, very, very, very, bad for you."

"Look man, if you kill us then you can count on two things, one you'll get nothing and two you'll waste a lot of energy and maybe even some ammo." Cochrane says with an air of arrogance which made the leader smirk before giving him a swift riffle check to the gut.

"Maybe we will kill just one of you as a way to get yours government's attention."

Hearing this Lee gulps hard, while praying that either the young Zentradi officer or Jackson have plan or that the SGC has the cavalry on the way.

"Who lives? Who dies?" Continues the rebel leader as he plays with the point of the combat knife, "That is up to you my friends."

"Ok, you listen to me," Says Jackson, "what you're doing now, is a very big mistake. People, some very, very, very, powerful people are going to come for us and, well let's just say that by letting us go now, you'll be saving yourself from a world of hurt."

Nodding as he was thinking about it the leader shrugs, "Ok, the hard-way it is, but know this, I will not hesitate to kill you all as an example to your government and sponsors, so that the next time they will take us seriously. You should know that many prisoners talk as you do," he says as the other rebels start to laugh, "They say things like, 'my friends will come and save me, if you let me go you'll live,' they do it to give themselves hope. Even if it is ultimately hopeless." As he re-closes and bars the door again.

-{[]}-

"If his brain waves are compatible with the device, then we should be able to see whatever he is thinking as he is thinking it and project them using this holographic display." Says Selmak/Carter as he walks over to the warrior, while everyone except Rockwell who was still standing guard in the Detonator weapons system, and places the modified memory recall device into its right temple.

Nodding to Teal'c the Tok'ra agent steps to one side allowing the Jaffa warrior to move closer to the restrained warrior. As soon as Teal'c is about a foot away from the warrior he asks the only question that everybody agrees that they needed an answer to. "What is your planet of origin?"

The warrior continues to stare at Teal'c as if he is nothing more than a bug which had to be squished, while thinking about the question which had just been given to him. After a few seconds in which the holo-screen showed the various ways that the warrior was wishing to kill Teal'c and everyone else on the base before escaping, then suddenly the screen changed and showed the view of the stars as they are seen from the surface of the world of the warrior.

"That's the sky above his world." Says Selmak/ Carter.

"I don't recognise any of those star configurations'," Says Newman and lieutenant Hailey, who had been brought in to assist while Carter was up on the Archangel with Hammond, before adding. "This could be anywhere in the galaxy."

"The Tok'ra have a sophisticated galaxy mapping program, we could process this through it and it should be able to locate planet's location." Says Selmak/ Carter with a smile on his host's face. "Unknown to him he has just given us the location of one of the key worlds for Anubis."

-{[]}-

"We call the planet Tartarus," Says Selmak/ Carter as he steps in front of the three dimensional cube showing the matched star configuration's on the main display of the briefing room. "We are currently attempting to get a scout ship as close as we can to assess its defences."

"Sir?" Asks Welsh, noticing that O'Neill was exiting Hammond's office with a very worried look on his face.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news. I've just gotten off the phone with major Davis in Washington, it would appear that doctor's Jackson, Lee and your lieutenant Cochrane have been kidnapped. The CIA's best guess is that they may have been taken over the border into Nicaragua, but at this minute we've no idea as to their location."


	10. Chapter 09: An Electrode Interrogation

**Chapter 09: An Electrode Interrogation**

"The State Department has received a ransom demand." Says O'Neill to Granger as they sit in Hammond's office an hour and a half after he had informed everyone about the kidnapping of Jackson, Lee and Cochrane. "They have given us seventy-two hours to pay half-a-million US dollars or they will kill all three of them."

"Does your state department know who is behind it and do they know if these 'Spawn of Khyron' have any clue that the young lieutenant is a none Terran?"

"They haven't given any clue that he's not from Earth but the CIA believes that they've been taken by some Honduran anti-government revolutionaries' and the state department have said that they are going to follow the book on this one."

"By that you mean they're going to do what, exactly?"

"Well, the official line on any situation like this is that they don't have any intention in paying the ransom as it would leave us open to further blackmail attempts."

"And unofficially they are doing?"

"The U.S. government's ties with the Honduran government is at stake and no-one at state is willing to risk braking the 'official line' on this no matter what it could do to the fate of the Earth."

"Obviously these rebels are thinking that your nation's very tenuous relationships with both the Nicaraguan and Honduran government's will prevent you from launching forces."

"They're wrong. I've already spoken with major Davis who's informed both the president and commodore Hudson, and after that commodore of yours calmed down and stopped threatening to do something called a 'rain of death'?" O'Neill said curiously to see what Grangers reaction was.

"You don't want to know." Says Granger with a smirk, realising that even the Macross Fleet officer could lose his temper and act like Dolza did.

"Anyway, they're agreed to help and as we speak they've got the CIA gathering whatever intelligence they can, however it's my guess that the president won't be willing to risk a possible international public relations incident."

"Understandable given that this command of yours is still a black-ops command."

"I'll keep you in the loop, the moment that I hear anything from the state department." O'Neill says as Walter walks up to the door as Granger leaves and is escorted back to the mess hall.

-{[]}-

Thor, major Carter and general Hammond sat in stunned amazement as Hudson and Dvorak explained their arrival and what they were offering to the people of earth.

"Your predicament while amazing, I must confess that the Asgard have never encountered the Triolian's, but I am more curious as to what sort of support you are going to offer to the people of the Tau'ri."

"Well as I said before help in the construction of a practical space defence force and its support craft and structure, in the form of one man micro fighters we class as F-1400 Star Wolf fighter/ interceptors, battle crane combat cargo lifters, Argo multi-role transports and a practical mid-range bomber/ transport in the form of the Starmax class." Said Dvorak as images of the mentioned craft appeared on the screen in place of the Triolian.

"Interesting designs and since the designs look like they are something that only a human mind would think of, more importantly they would fit with the design of the ship that the Tau'ri have already come up with."

"Why are you doing this?" Asked Hammond thinking of the Eurondan's and their war of genocide against the other nations on their planet and Jonas and the people of Langarra who had stated several times during their first contact that they were only interested in gaining access to earths advanced jet and rocket technology.

"Well despite the fact that this isn't back home, we have this ship and her crew have sworn an oath to defend earth and her colonies, and the best way in which the command crew and I can see to do that is to help advance your space program." Said Hudson.

"Not to mention we have a saying back home, 'Inimicus inimico amicus' which loosely translates as the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Said Dvorak, barely holding in her anger at having to say that Zodiac republic saying, "and since those Goa'uld have attacked both our recon flights and this ship, we have a common enemy."

"I see," Said Hammond, shrugging, "I'll need to present this to the president, but given what you are offering and the assistance that you have given to the Prometheus, I am fairly sure that the president and the other nations in the know about the stargate will be more than happy to sign-off on this deal."

-{[]}-

"Apurate, gringo!" says one of the rebels who had taken the group hostage as he pushes Jackson forward with the muzzle of the AK-47 he was holding, "Rapido! Rapido!" before forcing him roughly into a chair.

"You have not had any food or water for almost two days now," Says the leader of the rebels as he took a very sloppy drink of water before making a very flashy show of thinking a bite of a piece of fruit, "Mmm, may delicioso," he says passing it under Jackson's nose, "This is the pick of the season, this is actually quite good. So today we are going to start slow." He says walking slowly around the table so that he was perched next to the ancient device from the tomb. "What is this?"

Staying silent Jackson continues to just stare straight ahead at the device attempting to figure out what the writing on it actually said.

"And once again, this is the part where you are not so talkative? Ok, Mmm." He says taking another very theatrical bite of the fruit and passing it once more under Jackson's nose in a teasing manner. "If you tell me what I want to know then you and your friends will get some of this lovely passion fruit." After waiting a few seconds and getting more and more exasperated at seeing that he was getting nowhere he switches tracks. "You know I'm not sure long the human body can go without food, but I am sure that I read in a book somewhere that the body needs water every two or three days."

"It is an ancient artefact." Says Jackson, speaking for the first time since they had taken them, which takes the rebels by surprise.

"Ah?"

"I said it is an ancient artefact."

"An ancient artefact?"

"Yep, we are an archaeological team." Says Jackson. "That's what we do, we look for… well ancient artefacts… and well guess what… we found one." Laughs Jackson, thinking about how his SG1 team mate will be laughing himself silly when he reads this in the report. "Look seriously I am an archaeologist, if you have a computer you can look me up on the internet that is if you want." He says as he looks around the room and notices that they don't have any type of modern technology other than an old style radio from about the eighties.

"That all makes perfect sense," Says the rebel, "you and your friends are nothing more than archaeologist's, you look for and study ancient artefacts'."

"It make perfect sense."

"Ok, I'm going to ask you one more time. What is this?" Says the rebel with a very angry tone to his voice, while turning the artefact over rather heavily. "And once again you are not so talkative. What gives you and your friends the right to come into my country and steal anything that you think is valuable! To think that you call yourselves scientist! You three are nothing but a bunch of thieves! You think that you are better than me and my associates simply because you have a fancy diploma, but you are wrong, we do what we do for a reason!"

"I don't doubt that." Mutters Jackson under his breath but not softly enough as he is pistol-whipped across the back of his head.

Realising that they won't get anything useful by using none violent means, the rebel leader nods to one of the other rebels. "Okay, the hard-way it is then gringo."

Behind Jackson the rebel that had been nodded to placed his AK-47 down and removes the cover from the table which was near to Jackson, revealing a car battery which is connected to a set of car jump leads with a metal plate welded onto the end. To show that it worked he touches the ends together forcing them to spark.

-{[]}-

After being brought up to speed upon his return from the Archangel with major Carter, general Hammond is in his office hanging up his phone he turns to face Granger and O'Neill who were sitting patently after being called to his office.

"The CIA's local operative in Honduras, one agent Burke, has reported to Langley that he has a strong lead as to the whereabouts of doctor Jackson, doctor Lee and lieutenant Cochrane." Says Hammond, as he takes a sip of his coffee.

"Burke?" Asks O'Neill with a worried look on his face.

Noticing this, Granger turns slightly in his chair to face O'Neill so that he could look him in the eyes. "Judging by the look on your face colonel, I'm going to assume that you have worked with this agent Burke previously?" He stated more than asked.

"Yes, I have." O'Neill says after a moment of thought.

"Colonel, is there anything that we should know, he's the only person with any form of information on this situation."

"And we are stuck with him, regardless of anything I might say?"

"That's right colonel."

After a few seconds of silence, in which O'Neill had a very strong argument with himself about whether or not he should say what he knows and thinks of agent Burke. When he finally realises that his friends' lives are on the line he answers with a straight face. "No sir, there is nothing that you need to be aware of."

"I see," Says Hammond, knowing that much of the colonel's work before the SGC was classified at levels even higher than that of the SGC by the pentagon, so he decides to drop the matter. "He has requested that you participate in the rescue, both the president and commodore Hudson have green-lighted the operation. Executor Granger the commodore has requested that you and two members of Devil squad accompany the colonel."

"Yes sir, I shall inform the land operations and the explosive operative that they are accompanying me." Says Granger knowing that the pair where to hand.

"Understood, also when major Sisko is it?" Asked Hammond to which he received a nod from Granger, "Heard that you were being sent on the rescue mission he sent down a crate of equipment for you, he said something about 'you might need this.' Anyway there is a C-130 waiting for you over at Fort Carson airfield, it leaves for Honduras in three hours."

"Yes sir." Says O'Neill as he and Granger stand up to leave, and once Granger was clear of the chair that he had been sat in clasps his fist over his heart in a traditional Imperial salute towards Hammond.

-{[]}-

A short time later in the room that was being used by the personal from the Archangel, Granger was checking over the equipment that had been sent down from the Archangel with a look of surprise at the sight of the latest Imperial combat hard-suit, a FN-116 collapsible assault rifle, a R-class Gauss sniper rifle, a pair of ERC-M9 Storm machine pistols with extended ammunition magazines, and a single Aegohr scorpion sticky bomb launcher.

"What the hell is all this?" Asks O'Neill as he looks at all the weapons and equipment that was in the case. "You do know that this is a rescue mission and a low profile one at that."

"Yes colonel I do, but we have a saying in my line of business, 'expectabit para bellum' which loosely means 'hope for the best, prepare for war'."

"Ok, so what is all of this?"

"Just a basic weapons pack for an executor, micro probe droids, Taser disks, silenced collapsible assault rifle, a pair of machine pistols, sniper rifle and a remote detonator with sticky bombs for just in case the situation calls for it." Says Granger with a small smirk that sent a shiver down O'Neill's spine.

"Okay, I think I'll go now." Says O'Neill slowly backing out of the room as Granger began attaching the weapons to hard points on his combat hard-suit, and walked across the hallway towards Carters lab.

Upon entering her lab he notices that she has about half a dozen different computer screens active which were showing designs for ships the likes of which he had never seen before, figuring that they was something that she was working on he just dismisses them.

Somehow realising that she wasn't alone in her lab any more Carter looks up to see who it had dared to enter into what many on the base considered the second most hazardous place, right after Siler's workshop, and give them a piece of her mind until she realises that it is her SG1 team mate and commanding officer. "Sir?" She asks when she noticed that he had a very pained look on his face.

"I'm being sent to go and collect space-monkey, again, and the others." He says trying to inject a little bit of his usual humour into the situation.

"That's good news sir."

"Look, this other mission…"

"Shouldn't be much of a problem sir." Says Carter, knowing that the mission would be anything but. "When do you have to leave?"

"Straight away I'm afraid."

"Good luck sir."

"To quote Ryan from SG6, 'I don't need luck, I have ammo.' besides its only Honduran rebels."

-{[]}-

After being subjected to the interrogation for nearly an hour, the rebels drag the unconscious form of Jackson back to the hut that they were holding their captives in. opening the door they throw Jackson's body in before dragging Lee out at gun-point shouting at him in Spanish. "A este Lado!"

"What, no, no, I don't know anything! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" Lee pleads as he is dragged away by the rebels.

"Are you ok doctor Jackson?" Cochrane asked crouching down next to the other man feeling for a pulse, while silently wishing that he hadn't lost his scanner glasses when the water had crashed in back at the temple.

"Urrg, I will be… just as soon… as these drums… in my head quite… I think that I'll… just have a little nap now." Slurs Jackson before passing out.

-{[]}-

"We have confirmed that Anubis does in fact have a base in the Tartarus star system of the star cluster that you Tau'ri call the Pax Noveria." Said Ocker sitting at the briefing room table in the SGC's main briefing room above the gate control room, having delivered the latest batch of intelligence as to the state of the ongoing war between the combined forces of the Goa'uld against the technological advantage of the rouge Anubis. "However there is a very powerful sensor array and ground to orbit weapons, these sensors where even able to detect our scouting Tel'Tak while it was operating in stealth mode."

"We need to learn how it is that Anubis is creating these warriors, confirm what we believe he is planning to do and if we can destroy the facility to slow down his plans." Said Hammond voicing what everyone around the table, be they Tok'ra, Zentradi, Free Jaffa or Tau'ri, was thinking.

"Well I think I can safely speak for the commodore on this, but an orbital strike is out of the question by the Archangel since we are repairing the damage from our defence of the Lantean homeworld back home, and if I am not mistaken that toy you call a 'battle cruiser' is back in the dry dock being retro-fitted to make it something more than a multi-ton moving target." Says Welsh from her seat next to Bra'tac, and getting an evil glare from Carter.

"Not to mention the small matter of that force shield which Anubis has in place similar to our own iris." Said Carter, sheathing about the dig regarding the design of the Prometheus.

"We need to gain access to the planet and then shut down the sensor network." Stated Teal'c in his normal mono-tone voice.

"That's a given," Said Welsh as she began to analyse the problem from the point-of-view as a cover-operations operator, "the question becomes one of actually gaining physical access to the planet without tripping every single alarm on the base."

"I will walk through the stargate." Volunteered Selmak/ Carter.

"Selmak?" Asked Hammond looking at his friend who the current host to the Tok'ra symbiote.

"Yes." Said Selmak/ Carter in that double flanged voice that all members of the Tok'ra and their cousins the Goa'uld spoke in.

"Come again?" Queried a clearly shocked Hammond about the plan that his long-time friend was suggesting.

"I will infiltrate the base through the stargate by wearing the armour of the captured warrior. According to the reports which were submitted indicated that he actually walked through the force field that was set up to trap it."

"Yes but we do not know what the physical cost was to the host." Says Bra'tac from his seat across from the two Tok'ra agents. "But we also have no-way of knowing either."

"The force field that Anubis has in place around his stargate has to be an awful lot more powerful than the one that we placed at the capture site."

"I'm sorry kiddo," Says Selmak's host, and major Carters father, "I'm with Selmak on this one, so you can stop worrying he'll protect me and keep me safe. Anyways does anybody else have any better plans?"

"Not me, since the best man I have for this sort of mission has gone with colonel O'Neill's team." Welsh says with a small laugh about the fact that she knew Newman would be sneezing his head off right about now after that comment.

"Once I have deactivated the sensor array the rest of the strike force can then approach the planet in a ship and then infiltrate the base using the same sensor jammer that doctor Jackson and Mr Quinn took the other week."

"What's the exfil strategy?" Asked Hammond realising that Welsh, Carter and Selmak/ Carter all had a look that they were working the plan through in their heads.

"The ship." Says Bra'tac, having already worked out that portion of the plan. "We hide it in the sensor shadow of the planet's moon, then once the team has been dropped off it moves to a location which is out of sight of the base but close enough that it can move in to recover the team at a moment's notice, and with its power lowered it should avoid detection by any gliders that are patrolling the area."

"In that case, major Carter your mission has ago."

* * *

**Author's Notes.**

**Bonus points to anyone that can spot the two 80's cartoon reference that is hidden in this story as well as the weapons that I have given to Granger for use in the rescue mission :D**

**And sorry for the short chapter this time, as I am spending a lot of time having to watch the episode in order to remind myself of the original story line, but rest assured I have a plan to deal with the rebels and it will make what happened in the show and what the Goa'uld do seem pleasant compared to what I have planned, in fact even what the Wraith do when they are feeding is kind :evil laugh:. **


	11. Chapter 10: Dissension in the Ranks

**Chapter 10: Dissension in the Ranks**

Five hours and hundreds of miles later at the same cantina which Jackson, Lee and Cochrane had last been seen at, colonel O'Neill, executor Granger, lieutenant Newman and ensign Rockwell are all sitting down around one of the outside tables.

"Estas bien?" Asks a young lad that is the waiter at the cantina as he places down their next round of drinks on their table.

"Si, Bueno, gracious." Says O'Neill as he reaches forward to grab one of the fresh beers, just as the local CIA operative agent Burke snagged it out of the his hand and takes a seat uninvited.

"Hay. Man you look really pissed at seeing me, boy I would have given anything to have been there when you heard that I was going to be your contact down here." Laughs Burke, at least till he spots the looks from the other three men at the table. "Burke CIA, and you are?" He asked turning on the charm.

"Granger spec-ops." Was the only answer he gave to this man that he was sure that would never make it as an executor branch back home, hell Granger was sure that this man would never make it as a member of the Macross Fleet's own intelligence division.

"Charmed." Says Burke realising that the other three men where ice, before turning back to O'Neill. "Hay, it's cool, man…"

"It's not OK!" Snaps O'Neill, "We've got just under fifty hours to save our friends before they are killed, so just tell me what it is you know!"

"Okay, all business all the time." Jokes Burke, "I can get that." He said becoming serious for the first time since he sat down. "This is the last place that doctors Jackson and Lee along with their research assistant, one Zefrane Cochrane, where seen before they haired a local man by the name of Rogelio Duran as a guide to take them to a point somewhere in the southern jungles. A short time later the four of them where taken by a group of extremely radical anti-Honduran extremists."

"And you happen to know this… how?" Asked a clearly sceptical Newman as Rockwell just raised an eyebrow in query.

Shrugging Burke just takes a swig of his stolen beer, "It is how this particular cell operates. Last year they kidnapped an engineer who was key to the construction project oat the Cajon river dam, a huge contract for the URS Corporation out of San Francisco. The insurance agent pays out, their hostage is released and they get funding to continue their own little war, but this group are strange, it's said that their leader's eyes can glow and he sometimes talks with a deep double flanged voice."

"This engineer, did he live?" Asked Rockwell taking a sip of his own beer, while O'Neill grimaced at the fact that they might be facing another rouge Goa'uld not that he could tell Burke about that.

"Yeah," Answered Burke with a shrug, "but you know sometimes they don't."

"What sort of weapons and equipment are we looking at?" Askes O'Neill now that he had cooled off a little, and fearing that they might have to face Goa'uld staff weapons.

"Ok, so this is where it gets interesting. Honduras and Nicaragua are in the middle of a territorial dispute, and because of this anyone in the 'I hate Honduras' fan club can enter Nicaragua where you can buy guns. What type of guns? AK's, AK's for days. Nowadays they get their weapons direct from Russia, but twenty years ago before the fall of the USSR they got their stuff from Cuba."

"I think that you've been down here too long." O'Neill says as he takes a long swig of his beer to hide his relief that they shouldn't be facing any Goa'uld weapons.

"You think? You know why I got this god awful crappy assignment to the middle of nowhere?"

"Oh great here we go, are you going to blame me now?" Says O'Neill, completely forgetting about the other three being there.

"You bet I am, you know you could have help me out, stood up for me. I could have used your help when Hillary left me, or during the inquest. Do you know what happens during a blue on blue incident when one team member is killed and the other team member doesn't or won't vouch for you?"

"I didn't see what happened to Woods, I only told them what I knew, and I wasn't going to lie to an official board of inquiry." O'Neill said taking a swig of his beer finishing it. "I just told them what I knew."

"I'm not on about lying man, I'm talking about my head." Spat Burke in response, "we three were buddies, you, me and Woods."

After having finished his little argument, Burke finishes his drink.

"I just told them what I saw."

"Well, it wasn't enough and now you need my help down here in…" Started Burke before being interrupted by O'Neill.

"No, you're just the guide." Interrupts O'Neill.

"A guide? That's what you think of me now?"

"That's right, you're not so far gone that you've forgotten what a chain of command is for, are you?"

"You want to know how far gone I am." Burke says downing the last of his beer before walking off.

"That went well." Says Granger, realising that it was probably wrong for O'Neill to be sent on this mission.

"Quiere algo mas, Senors?" Says the same waiter from before returning to see if they needed any more drinks.

"Si, necesito un guia." O'Neill says as he slams back a shot of the local tequila in anger over how Burke was being as arrogant as any of the Goa'uld that he had faced in the last six years.

"I am a guide, senor," Says the waiter throwing a bar towel over his shoulder, "this, it is just my day job."

Hearing this Newman mutters in Zentradi to Rockwell, "That's convenient."

-{[]}-

After three hours of near constant screaming, the rebels drag the barely conscious body of doctor Lee back into the their small cell and throw him onto the ground. Once the rebels had re-locked the door and moved away Jackson and Cochrane moved over to Lee to check on him.

"I never… thought that… I would… die like this." Lee pants while convulsing slightly. "I'm… sorry Daniel… I just couldn't… take it… I… I told them…"

"What?" Asks Cochrane as he checks Lee over for any broken ribs, bones or other life threatening injuries, "What did you tell them Bill?"

"Everything." He pants, not really used to being out in the field let alone being electrocuted like Jackson was due to the curse of SG1.

"Deculture!" Swore Cochrane before muttering in Zentron about how truly screwed they were and that if he was lucky he would probably be going to spend the next year scrubbing the plasma exhaust conduits for this.

-{[]}-

While Cochrane was carefully examining Lee for any life threatening injuries, over the other side of the compound in the hut that the rebels had been torturing the three tomb raiders, the handful of rebels present all gathered near the doorway to the hut looking on nervously as the Goa'uld, whom had taken over the leader of them years ago, and had taken the lead in interrogating the three prisoners played around with the device. Around ten minutes of examining it and making it look like he was touching it at random he activates it.

Seeing this the Goa'uld stood back and smirked before turning to face the device so that his face was hidden from the others as his eyes glowed with the characteristic smirk of a happy Goa'uld, before muttering under his breath in Goa'uld, "Now I have Telchak's secrete nothing can stop me."

-{[]}-

"How's that sir." Asked an SGC technician as he places a small Tok'ra designed sub-space radio under the breast plate of the warriors armour that Selmak/ Carter was wearing in order to infiltrate Anubis' base, as they stood behind the safety lines for the gate preparing him for his part of the mission.

"It's fine, in fact it reminds Jacob of his old football days." Replied Selmak/ Carter with a smirk.

"Did they have helmets back in those days sir?" Joked a younger technician, earning him a small evil eye from Selmak/ Carter, and general Hammond from where he was next to Walter in the control room.

"Shutting up now, sir." The technician replies sheepishly.

Seeing that everything was going smoothly with the dialling sequence, Hammond makes his way out of the control room and into the embarkation room to chat with his long-time friend before he goes off on his part of the mission. "So Jacob you ok in there?" he asks once he is within ear shot so that he could be heard over the sound of the gate dialling, as the second symbol for the gate address to Tartarus is locked in.

"It's surprisingly light," Say Carter having taken control back from Selmak, "You know George I'd be very surprised if Sammie doesn't try to get her hands on the plans for recreating this stuff during this mission."

The two men laugh about this for a few moments, before becoming serious once again. "I guess its time."

"Good luck."

"Thank-you George." Says Carter before allowing the technicians to finish suiting him up in the warriors armour with the helmet and full face breathing unit. With the helmet on he stepped forward as the gate finished his dialling sequence and activated connecting the SGC to the planet that Anubis had his base.

Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves before he started up the ramp and stopped through the event horizon of the stargate.

Less than a second later he stepped through the other side, passing through the iris type energy shield on the other gate, and paused looking around at the heart of the volcano in which the stargate was in, after noticing that the only way out was through a door at the other end of a small bridge and into the base, Selmak/ Carter crosses it and enters the base.

After no more than a few paces in to the base and before he could even begin to search for a terminal so that he could shut down the sensor grid, he is spotted by one of Anubis's under lords.

"You come with me." The Goa'uld ordered turning and walking off without even waiting to see if Selmak/ Carter was following and lead him deeper into the base. After a round a minute he is taken into a room with three chairs and a Goa'uld style diagnostic station.

"Sit." The Goa'uld ordered pointing to one of the chairs as he moves to the diagnostic station. "You seem to be damaged."

"Thoth." Says Anubis from the doorway with his newest first prime who was carrying on of the new beam swords just a few paces behind his master.

"My lord, I was not expecting you." Answers the under lord while dropping down to one knew to show his respect as the defeated and captured Goa'uld he was.

"Tell me, how this one has fared." Anubis asks gesturing to Selmak/ Carter sitting in the chair with the scanner light active.

"This one has just returned my lord, I have only just activated the systems to begin my examination. I will need some time so that I my finish the preliminary analysis before I can make a more detailed report."

"That can wait," Orders Anubis, "there is a remote sensor probe which has malfunctioned and requires your attention."

"Yes my lord." Thoth says as Anubis turns and leaves with the first prime taking up his position again once his master had passed and Thoth following a few paces later, leaving Selmak/ Carter alone in the lab. When he was certain that there was nobody within ear shot he let out a very relieved sigh.

-{[]}-

Unbeknown to the handful of Jaffa and Goa'uld within the facility on the surface, hiding within the sensor shadow of one of Tartarus many moons a lone Goa'uld scout ship sat with almost all of its systems powered down, so that Bra'tac, Teal'c, major Carter and lieutenant Welsh aren't spotted shot down.

"Come on dad." Muttered Carter not realising that she had said it aloud.

"The sensors still need to be deactivated, ma'am," Commented Welsh from her spot leaning against the wall next to the ring room entrance playing with her exo-frames tac-pad, "give him some time." Which earned her a cold stare from carter whom was sitting in the co-pilots seat of the scout.

"We are helpless to act," Says Bra'tac sitting at the helm of the scout, "even if we were to attempt to communicate with your father…"

"We would need to power up the ship and break orbit of this moon, which would make us visible to the bases sensors and we would have a half dozen death gliders on us faster than you can say 'Cree'." Sighs Carter. "It's just that so many things could have gone wrong." She complains while voicing the thoughts of everyone in the small ship. "He can just be so stubborn at time, and it's only gotten worse since he joined with Selmak."

"Major Carter perhaps it is time that we…" Starts Teal'c before the console in front of Bra'tac starts beeping, which he reads the small display that had popped up in front of him.

"The small probe which we deployed has just sent a date burst which shows that the bases sensor grid is has been powered down." Says Bra'tac which causes major Carter to smile slightly.

"No doubt your father's stubbornness ma'am." Jokes Welsh as she starts to reattach the parts of her fire force assault system.

"Dad, we are on the move." Says Carter as Bra'tac begins to bring the ship back on-line and out of the sensor shadow of its hiding place.

"That's great news. When you get down here head to the south-west exhaust port assemblage, I might have a way to get your team in." Responds Selmak/ Carter over the comm-link.

"Roger that, ETA ten minutes."

-{[]}-

"Wait hold up." Says O'Neill as he taps the guide that he, Newman, Granger and Rockwell had hired to show them to where the GPS locators for Jackson and the others had last been up dated deep in the jungle. "This is it." He says as they enter a small clearing.

"As I told you senor, there is nothing here." Says their guide as he looks around the small clearing in the jungle.

"Well there is this well in the middle of nowhere," Says a voice which causes O'Neill, Newmann and Rockwell to take aim at the source, "with standard U.S. military boot prints all around it, and these sun-glasses that where floating on the surface."

Hearing the overly cheerful voice of agent Burke, O'Neill lowers his weapon, which the other two take as a sign to do the same, and rolls his eyes.

"Make a wish." Burke says before he drops in a five centaros coin into the pool. "So what took you four so long, hum? I mean it's like day one of SF training to track a GPS locator?" He asks swinging the three GPS units at arms-length while casually holding his special forces M4 MWS with an M203 grenade launcher slung under the barrel. "Nar, I'm just joshing with you I've only been here a few minutes or so myself."

"Change your mind?" O'Neill asks in a sceptical tone of voice.

"You could say that." Replies Burke, tossing O'Neill the GPS units and reaching into his combat webbing and pulls out a small roll of fifty Lempira notes rolled up and gives them to the guide. "Vete, regresate a la cantina."

The young guide took the money and smiles when he realises that there must be close to four thousand Lempira in the small bundle. "Cuatro mil? Muchas gracias senor."

"Momentito." O'Neill says to the guide with a small smirk and holding up a finger.

"This is the end of the road pal," Burke says pointing down to the GPS units on the floor in front of Granger, "you didn't think that these fella's would make it easy for your team did you? I'll get your squad where you need to go."

"For old time's sake?"

"Well you know, I took an emotional inventory recently and I realised that I have some serious issues. I thought that maybe we could put our petty differences to one side on this one. When this hits the fan you're going to need me, so what do you say give me a chance I won't let you down."

"We could use the firepower and support colonel." Says Granger staring at Burke, sizing him up while O'Neill thought about it.

After about a minute or two he shrugs accepting the login that they could use the fire power that Burke was packing if Jackson had gotten into his usual trouble, and if the reports about the leader of these rebels was true. "Si, vete. Gracious, vamos." O'Neill says as he passes the guide another hundred Lempira.

"Vaya con Dios."

"Now we're talking' sports fans!" Jokes Burke as he walks past Granger and slaps O'Neill playfully on the arm before heading into the jungle, and starts talking to the group. Like he was a tour guide. "Hi there my name is agent Burke and I'll be your guide, today we will be looking at the indigenous flowers and vegetation of this region of Central America. Watch your step now ladies were not in Kansas anymore."

"Easy." Says O'Neill as he catches up to Burke as Rockwell places Cochrane's scanner glasses into a pouch on his exo-frame.

-{[]}-

"If you value the life of your friends you will tell me what it is that I want to know about this thing?" Demands the Goa'uld that was in charge of the rebels pacing around in front Jackson, who was bound to the chair in front of a table in the same hut that he had been tortured in a few hours earlier. "I know that this thing is related to the 'Fountain of Youth' myth, your friend told us that much."

"May… maybe." Coughs Jackson before spitting a small amount of blood out from when he had been hit a moment before.

"And how does it work?" Asks the Goa'uld with his back to the others in the room, while one of the other rebels pulls a small crucifix out from under his top and kisses it.

"I… I don't… know." Stutters Jackson which earns him a punch to the gut, "Look you grabbed us five minutes after we found it and a minute after we had almost drowned." Wheezed Jackson.

"Who was this Telchak?"

"He's a mythological figure," Says Jackson having managed to regain some of his breath, "The ancient Mayan god of rain and rivers, who may or may not have been in this region during the pre-Columbian era."

"So this thing is many thousands of years old?" Asks the Goa'uld, slightly glad that his cover hadn't been spotted by this lowly Tau'ri scum.

"Poss… possibly."

"And this god," says the Goa'uld looking directly at Jackson as his eyes glowed, brought this device to his temple for what reason?"

Jackson remains quiet as he finally realises that he might be in even more trouble than a few rebels out to make a quick pay day, before he is once more hit across the face which causes him to cut his gum when he bites down on it. "To… to hide it… or use it? I… don't know." Coughs Jackson hiding the fact that he knows more and that the leader is possessed by a Goa'uld.

"Use it? On whom?"

"People! The Mayan people!"

"What would it do to them?!

"I don't know," Starts Jackson before he is backhanded again, "Look the research that we did which lead us to the temple just gave a very cryptic warning, that the thing was… dangerous, possible even deadly. That's all I know I swear!"

"I don't think that it is so harmful." The Goa'uld says grabbing the top of Jackson's head and snapping it back hard, "In fact I have never felt as good as I do right now." He finishes whispering into Jackson's ear in his normal double flanged voice, before letting go of his head and walking over to the table and uncovering the now fully active device.

"You… you turned it on?" Jackson asks, now mentally panicking that he was so far up the creek he might as well be dead.

"Of course."

"Turn it off." Pleads Jackson, "I'm begging you, you don't know what it is you are dealing with. The effects of the radiation that it emits, may be unstable, its centuries beyond our scientific knowledge. Turn. It. Off!"

"You are lying!" The Goa'uld says letting some of its normal double flange voice slip into its voice.

"What if he isn't? This thing is cursed, Boss, maybe we should turn it off." Begs on of the rebels.

"Turn it off? Do you not feel the way it has made you stronger?"

"I do, and it scares me. Por favour boss, I am begging you." The same rebel pleads, before issuing and ultimatum. "If you won't turn it off… I will."

Making a show of thinking about the issue for a few moments the Goa'uld continues to read the ancient script all over the device, before he suddenly pulls his Glock 9x19mm and shoots the scared rebel right through the heart with military precision, killing him instantly.

Seeing this Jackson gulps as he realises that not only is this Goa'uld insane, but the effects of the device are only enhancing the psychopathic tendencies of all Goa'uld at a much faster rate than any sarcophagus ever could.

-{[]}-

Back on Tartarus Selmak/ Carter finishes triggering the access doors into the base from the exhaust port to allow the rest of the team, minus Bra'tac who had to stay with the scout ship so that he could fly it in when they were ready for extraction. After a few moment with the doors open major Carter, Teal'c and lieutenant Welsh stepped through from the exhaust system and into the maintenance walkway.

"What happened?" Asked major Carter staring at her father while Welsh moved forward to provide cover since her exo-frame's helmet had a built in motion tracker.

"I Tricked the exhaust system into thinking that it was time to purge the system for maintenance." Says Selmak/ Carter even though the Tok'ra agent knew exactly what she was really asking.

"I meant with the sensor system." She said still staring daggers at him.

"We was kind of held up." Says Selmak/ Carter giving his host's daughter a small shrug. "You weren't worried about me now were you, kiddo." Hearing her father's joking tone Carter just rolls her eyes, causing him to smirk. "So can you give me some help to get out of this thing?"

-{[]}-

Several levels above where the infiltration team were linking up with Selmak/ Carter, Thoth re-enters the examination lab that he had been in prior to being sent to fix the malfunctioning probe. Looking around the first thing he notices is that the warrior he had started to run a test on was missing, not realising that it had been a member of the Tok'ra in disguise. Gulping Thoth sets off to the throne room to inform Anubis about the missing drone.

-{[]}-

"That's the third one that I've seen since I got here." Says Selmak/ Carter, now wearing a standard USAF flight suit over the warriors base layer, as he, Welsh, Teal'c and his daughter all came out of their hiding spots after a lone warrior had gone past and rounded the corner.

"How many of them do you think that Anubis has?" Carter asks as Teal'c moves forward to cover the next intersection of corridors, while Welsh planted a small remote detonating plasma charge.

"There's no way of knowing, but I'm guessing that it can't be more than a handful at the most. The lab which I was taken to seemed like it was configured to house around a dozen."

The team continued through the base, making sure to use an ultraviolet marker to show the way back to their infiltration point, around five minutes later the group enters into a lab.

"Symbiote holding tanks." Says Selmak/ Carter as the group look around the lab as Welsh takes up a position next to the door to provide cover and alert them in case someone was to come their way.

"Yer but they're all empty." Says major Carter as she looks around.

"This one is not." Says Teal'c walking over to a tank in the centre of the room.

"What the frack is that!" Walsh says taking a quick glance over to what Teal'c is looking at.

-{[]}-

"Speak!" Anubis says knowing that Thoth was behind him.

"Lord Anubis," Thoth says as he takes to a knee behind Anubis who was looking out over a training area filled with his warriors and most loyal Jaffa, "one of the Kull warriors has gone missing."

"What is the reason for this behaviour?"

"There was… some damage, but I believe that our method for controlling the mind of the symbiote might still be flowered."

"That is unacceptable. Determine what the origin of the flaw is then report back to me."

"Yes my lord." Thoth says as he stands and walks out of the room without another word.

-{[]}-

"The rebels tend to move around a lot." Says Burke as he leads the others through a patch of rather dense jungle. "A lot of the low level grunts are your typical self-taught bush fighters. It's the harvest season right now, so the majority of them are tending to their farms or are with their families right now. Those who aren't are all ex-military and are holding up around twenty kilometres or so north-west of Ocotal right now."

Noticing something is just off the trail they had been following just ahead, Rockwell signals for them all to stop. Instantly O'Neill diced into cover behind a tree before waving covertly to Granger and Newman to take up forward flanking positions while he, Burke and Rockwell moved up forward allowing the motion tracker on his exo-frame's helmet to detect any near-by movement. "At least we know we're on the right track."

As Rockwell and Burke moved into cover positions around the fallen person while O'Neill moves to check on the man to see if he is still alive, as he reaches to check for a pulse Rogelio wakes up which makes both O'Neill and Burke to jump out of their skin.

"I've been shot." Says Rogelio. "Argh! No, no, no." he moans as O'Neill lifts him slightly to see the wound.

"You have been shot." Deadpans O'Neill as he gently lowers him back down.

"Si"

"Air rescue should be here in about an hour or so," Says Burke hanging up the sat-phone he had used while O'Neill had been checking over Rogelio.

"Here this should help till they get here." Says Rockwell passing O'Neill a small bacta-gel pouch as Burke raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Mucho mejor, and since I've been here for a couple of days, what's another hour or so?" Says Rogelio as the medicated elements from the gel took effect.

"Who did this?" Asks O'Neill as Burke cuts binds that had been used to tie the young man's wrists together, while Granger and Newman moved up from their flanking positions.

"Uno malditas bandios que mueren del dolor del culo." Curses Rogelio.

"Alright, alright we get it." O'Neill reassures him while tapping him gently on the shoulder. "We're here looking for two scientists and their research assistant."

"Doctor Jackson? They have him. "Rogelio says having calmed down a little from his rant, thanks to the medication in the bacta-gel. "They went north back across the border, go."

"We're not just going to leave you." Says Rockwell having used the built in medical scanner in his suit to check him over for any internal bleeding.

"Sure you can, senor." Says Rogelio slight shrug and getting high from the pain med's. "Help will be here soon, don't worry. This isn't the first time that I have been shot, go save your friends please, the own me a lot of money."

"Ah." Says O'Neill as the others all start to laugh before standing to move out again. As they start to move Burke tosses the injured man a pack of Stride gum.

"I love American gum." Rogelio says as he opens the gum and takes a piece out. "Good men."

-{[]}-

"He moved. I killed him. It was as simple as that, I thought that he was a hostile, you know." Says Burke about half an hour after they had left Rogelio.

"It's all history Burke," Says O'Neill as he moved a low hanging branch out of his way, "and now's not really the time."

"I know that we were out of position. I wanted to cut down the angle as you approached the objective, I'm guessing that Woods was doing the same."

"So the pair of you both took it upon yourselves to improvise at the exact same time?" Asks O'Neill doing his best impression of his SG1 team mate and friend Teal'c.

"That's right."

-{[]}-

Selmak/ Carter continued to work at the console in the lab which was connected to the tank which was holding the Goa'uld queen while Welsh continued to cover the door.

"Judging by the number of holding tanks in this room Anubis must be planning to have this queen breed him an army of symbiote's, the question is why?" Says major Carter as she finishes planting a few C4 charges around the room and makes her way over to where her father was. "Goa'uld symbiote's poses the genetic memory of which ever queen spawns it, they're the very definition of egomaniacal and power hungry, not the best combination for a foot soldier."

"I've met senator Kinsey," Jokes Selmak/ Carter. "but that is correct, however take a look at these readings." He says as he points to the holographic screen which was showing a real time brain scan of the queen. "This queen whomever it is has to be in league with Anubis, she is preparing to go through a spawning cycle, yet her brainwave patterns are at almost at the bare minimum, she has absolutely no intention of passing on any of her genetic memory to the symbiote's, they'll be completely blank slates."

"Just like what happened with Egeria on Pangar." Says Teal'c remembering the mission a few months prior in which SG1 had found the Tok'ra's queen just before she had died due to complications from her captivity.

"And Anubis is free to imprint whatever he seems fit, with no free will, they're nothing but drones, the perfect foot soldier. Deadly, fearless and with total unquestioning loyalty." Supplied Selmak/ Carter.

"This is too similar to what happened on Pangar to be a coincidence. How on earth did Anubis find out about Egeria?"

"Jonas Quinn." Deadpans Teal'c in his monotone voice, having already worked it out. "When he was captured by Anubis, he must have discovered this information when he used a mind probe like he did on Supreme Command Thor, and took the information directly from his mind."

"If Anubis had any plans on creating a type of drone soldier, that information may have been the missing part of the puzzle."

"This queen must not be allowed to spawn again."

"Teal'c's right."

"One queen killer coming at you." Says Welsh as she tosses a high-grade anti-proton remote detonating explosive charge pack over to Teal'c.

"Alright, we'll take what time we have remaining and try and find out anything else we can to do with Anubis's plans. Then we detonate all the charges and get the hell out of here." Major Carter says as Teal'c places the demo-charge in a spot where it would do the most damage while being out of sight on the queen's tank.

-{[]}-

Back on earth Jackson is using a boot and their belts on the rear wall to make an opening so that they can escape while Cochrane kept watch on the rebels to make sure that they weren't discovered.

"Shouldn't we at least… wait till nightfall." Pants Lee.

"I don't think we have that long." Says Jackson over the sound of straining wood.

"We won't get even a hundred yards before they kill us." Mutters Cochrane.

"If we stay then the Goa'uld that's taken over the leader of these rebels will kill us. I've seen the short term effects of that device, I know what a sarcophagus does to a person's sanity, couple that with the already psychopathic nature of this Goa'uld, and this thing is easily a hundred times more powerful."

"I'm guessing that we don't want to hang around to see what the long term effects are going to be then?" Says Cochrane still leaning on the frame of the door to their cell.

-{[]}-

Over on the far side of the small compound, in the hut which they had been interrogated in, the rebel who had been killed by the Goa'uld suddenly took a deep gasping breath, like he had just emerged from under water, as the healing properties of the devices radiation revives him and he sits up.

-{[]}-

"Could be just a couple more kilometres now." Says Burke as he continues leading O'Neill, Newman, Granger and Rockwell through the jungle, before he turned to face O'Neill over his shoulder. "How can you trust me?"

"I don't." Replies O'Neill before he takes a swig from his canteen.

"You think that I asked for you and these three to come down here just so that I could kill you too?"

"Now why would I think that?" Asks O'Neill realising that Burke had stopped.

"Forget that I said anything." Burke says as he adjusts the carry sling for his rifle.

"You've had plenty of opportunities before this one."

"What's worse is that you think that I'm nothing but an incompetent enganor."

"For crying out loud Burke!"

"So you're perfectly willing to go into a hot situation with me watching your back?"

"We've," Says O'Neill putting emphasis on the word, "got no choice, and personally I was thinking of sending you in first and me watching your back."

"You wanna know the truth? I mean come on you mean to tell me that you honestly don't want to know?" Burke says almost pleading. "Man, it wasn't my fault, I mean I didn't chose too I just reacted. It stinks, the whole damn thing stinks. You wanna know what really happened, fine. I'll tell you. Wood's he was ghosting us, he'd sold us out, he was sending out a rouge transmission which was giving away our position. When he realised that I was onto him, he turned his weapon on me and I just reacted."

O'Neill looked at Burke realising that he had been carrying this guilt around with him for nearly twenty years, relaxed his facial features a little before he asked. "Why didn't you come forward with this?"

"You remember how close we were, what with the wives, the beers and the barbecues', I couldn't have done that to Cindy. If it ever came out that Wood's was a traitor you know that she wouldn't have seen a penny of his pension. He was a month away from retirement, but the thing is he wasn't planning on retiring he was setting himself up as a mercenary for that South American drug lord, Sanchez. He made his choice and now he's gone, that's all that matters." He says as he brushes past O'Neill to catch up with Newman and the others a little further ahead.

-{[]}-

As Jackson finished prising off the last of the wall so that could escape, the unmistakeable sound of an AK-47 on semi-fire mode makes all three captives realise that they may have just run out of time. Deciding to forego stealth Jackson and Cochrane just kick out the final piece of wall before squeezing out of the hole that they had made, and make a break for the treeline.

On the other side of the makeshift compound that the Goa'uld used as a base for these rebels, the rebels where taking cover as their recently killed comrade was walking around shooting at everything.

As he reached the treeline Jackson hugs a tree to shield himself from view as he looks back at the compound, and sees that all of the small number of rebels are shooting at the resurrected form of the recently killed rebel. "Not good!" he says as he pats Cochrane on the shoulder as he passes, and the three of them continue their escape into the treeline of the jungle.

"Disparen!" Shouts the Goa'uld as he and the rest of the remaining rebels open fire with a mix of AK-47's and several short barrel shot-guns. After around five minutes of continues fire the zombiefied rebel collapses, once he was down the Goa'uld nudges the rebel next to him, who in turn taps the next guy along to go see and make sure that he is dead for certain this time.

Once they are sure the Goa'uld and two of the remaining rebels practically run to the hut which they had placed their captives in and opened the door only to be confronted with the sight of the missing rear wall and no prisoners.

"NOOOO!" The Goa'uld screams allowing his anger to overcome him so that he loses total control, before he spins and snaps at the two rebels that were next to him. "You let them escape! Find them, and kill them NOW!" He commands using his normal double flanged voice, as they all make for the treeline behind the compound.


	12. Chapter 11: You are all the instruments

**Chapter 11: You are all the instruments of my conquest**

Continuing their search the infiltration team suddenly take cover after the motion tracker on Welsh's H.U.D. detected a signal of somebody was coming towards them from one of the rooms just up ahead on the right, signalling to the others about the danger. After allowing the Goa'uld a few seconds to move off the group come out of their respected hiding places.

"There has to be a console somewhere that will allow us to access a log of recent activity." Whispers major Carter as she moves up next to Welsh, as the adaptive camouflage moved back to its basic black, who had taken cover next to the door that the Goa'uld had just exited from as a set of rings finished recessing into the ceiling. "Even if it doesn't contain any of Anubis long range plans, we might still be able to gather some intelligence on his fleet and ground force locations and maybe the plans for the drones armour."

"Nothing but labs, corridors and storage rooms down this way." Selmak. Carter whispers as he looks down the corridor next to the ring-room, before turning to see that Teal'c is nodding to indicate that it was the same on his side of the intersection. "I'm willing to bet that Anubis's personal quarters and the throne room are down this way." He says as he points down the way which the Goa'uld had just gone. After helping welsh to place one of her anti-personal mines on the hatch for the rings, so that if they were activated they would be destroyed to prevent any Jaffa from ringing in close to their location, the team moves on in search of an active computer terminal.

Ten cautious minutes later the team take up positions to cover each other as they enter the personal quarters of Anubis, which is also his throne room. As they begin their search of the room for an active terminal they hear the sound of very heavy and rhythmic marching coming from the open balcony.

"Where's that coming from?" Asks Welsh looking up from the shelves in front of her that she had just picked up about half a dozen Goa'uld PADD's off, as the team look around the room before seeing the open balcony the group cautiously make their way over to it. "Deculture!" swears Welsh, almost under her breath, "I knew I should have brought a neidhart war head with us."

Below the team they can see a formation of drones amassing as if for a parade review in front of a lone figure dressed all in black robes standing on an anti-gravity platform.

"You are all my children. Kull warriors!" Says Anubis as he looks out over the formation of two battalions worth of drones, while spreading his arms before continuing his speech. "You are all the instruments of my conquest."

"Hail Anubis! Hail Anubis! Hail Anubis!" The drones chant as they all drop to on knee.

"We are so fracked!" Welsh mutters as she begins to pan around the tactical camera on the side of her helmet to capture the view below them of the still kneeling drones below her.

-{[]}-

Back in the Central American jungle Burke is passing around his pack of gum to the group when they hear the sound of gunfire from multiple AK-47's being fired not that far away. As soon as they had worked out which direction the shoots had come from before taking off at a run towards the sound.

In the direction of the gun-fire less than a quarter of a kilometre from the rescue team, Jackson, Lee and Cochrane are running as fast as they can when Lee trips over a half raised root.

"Bill, you got to keep moving!" Says Jackson as he slows down long enough so that he could help his colleague up, just as some gun-fire clipped the tree that the root was from, while Cochrane scrambled past them still cursing in Zentron.

"Matenlos!" Shoats the Goa'uld while he continued to fire at the three retreating backs of the escaping prisoners. "Matenlos! Siganme! Kree!"

O'Neill and the others pause for a second in an attempt to get a hint to which way to go, when they hear the sound of more gun-fire over the sound of the one word that O'Neill has come to hate over the last six years 'Kree', which makes him gulp his suddenly dry throat before signalling to Granger to take Rockwell and Newman right and he and Burke will go left and circle around.

Before they can catch up with them Lee and Cochrane both trip with Cochrane twisting his ankle.

"FRACK ME!" Cochrane screams as he attempts to get back up only to see his foot facing the wrong way.

"I can't… I can't breathe." Pants Lee.

"Yes you can." Says Jackson as he helps Lee up guiding him to where Cochrane had managed to hobble behind some fallen trees. "Stay down, I'll draw them off."

A few seconds after Lee and managed to hide with Cochrane, the rebels and the Goa'uld go charging past them, without even slowing down to check behind the logs.

"Argh!" Jackson screams as a bullet clips leg while he was running, making him fall into a tree.

Seeing this the rebels close in on him while the Goa'uld fires at the dirt in front of Jackson before firing over everyone's heads, then throws his rifle down while holding out his hand to receive a machete. "I am going to skin you alive!" He says as he advances towards Jackson with a look of pure loathing on his face while his eyes flashed.

Seeing that he is doomed Jackson desperately grasps around him, searching for something, anything with which to defend himself with. Just as he spots a rock and turns to pick it up he hears the sound of three bodies all hitting the ground. Turning back slowly he sees Rockwell, Newman and Granger all emerging from the jungle with Granger replacing his silenced machine pistol to its holster on his thigh.

"How many are there?" Granger asks as Newman moves to cover Jackson while Rockwell begins to treat him. "Doctor Jackson?"

"That's… that's all of them." Says Jackson as he slowly slips into shock. "Keep an eye on that guy with the machete, he's… he's a Goa'uld. What are you guys doing here?" He asks, just as the Goa'uld begins to recover from the stun shot that Rockwell had fired at him to save Jackson.

"Urg!"

"Is that so, in that case if you will excuse me, I think I need to have a little chat with this parisi." Granger says, sending a shiver down the other three's spin, as he walks over to the Goa'uld and starts to drag him off slipping on a pair of magnetic cuffs around his wrists.

"What do you intend to do with me Tau'ri scum." The Goa'uld asked looking at Granger who walked over and dumped the Goa'uld on the ground a good distance from Jackson and the others, before he placed a small tube into the nook of a nearby tree.

"I want answers. Who sent you here? What did you plan to do?" Granger asked stepping on the Goa'uld's head forcing it into the dirt.

"If that's the best you can do release me and I'll…" Starts the Goa'uld before he chocks as Granger kicks him hard with his boot in the ribs, sending him tumbling across the ground, as he walks back to the tree which he had placed the tube in moments ago, picking it up revealing that it was now a two foot long bar of metal.

"What… what are you doing?" The Goa'uld asked as his eyes went wide with fear.

"Getting some answers." Granger said as the bar started to heat up to a brilliant cherry orange red colour and making the surrounding air shimmer as the water vapour in the air turned to steam due to the intense heat. "On your feet." Granger ordered as O'Neill came out of the jungle behind Granger.

The Goa'uld's eyes went even wider as he tried in vain to scramble away from the man that was intent on torturing him for information. "Please… have… have mercy!"

"Like the mercy that you showed the victims of those companies and organisations who wouldn't or couldn't pay?" Granger said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Sure."

The Goa'uld relaxed a little and managed to get to his feet just in time to see the swing of the bar before it slammed into his gut, which melted through his clothing. "BWAHHHHHHHHHH!" The Goa'uld screamed letting lose a bloodcurdling scream, as tears streamed down his face. Granger pulled the bar away allowing the smell of burnt flesh and melted fabric to fill the air as the Goa'uld collapsed to his knees in pain.

Burke reached the area and just stood next to O'Neill and watched as Granger rounded on the man again, this time slamming the heated bar into his back melting through his clothes once more and deep into his back, again he screamed louder as his eyes rolled into the back of his head from the pain. "AHHHHHHHHHH!"

Granger kicked him across the dirt to release the bar from his back. "Who sent you here?" He asked of the Goa'uld practically yelling the question so that he could be heard over the sound of the man's screaming, since the Goa'uld was unable to move his legs, the strike to his back breaking his spinal cord and rendering him unable to escape.

"Be… Belus!" The Goa'uld chocked out trying to drag himself away from granger towards Burke. "Please HELP ME!" He screams as O'Neill places his arm out to stop Burke from getting too close to the wounded snake head.

"You mean Ba'al?" O'Neill says glaring at the Goa'uld in disgust, which nods as it realises that this is O'Neill of SG1 and he is about to die, just like Apophis, Ra, Cronus and so many others had since the Tau'ri emerged on to the galactic scene six short years ago.

"He wanted information… he even told me the best way to get it." The Goa'uld gulped as some blood spilled down his face. "The fool though went and joined Anubis in his war against the other system lords." He chocked from the pain.

"Is that a fact?" Granger said as glared down at the Goa'uld. "Well that too bad, I guess that I'll just need to take it out on you then. I'm sure that you are aware of the ways of the Ashrak? The assassins of the system lord?"

The Goa'uld's eyes widened in fear once more as Granger reached behind him and pulled out a small metal contain which had was attached to his combat hard-suit. "Well… whatever, I'm sure that you've heard of their torture methods, well the people that trained me in the art would make their methods look those of a naughty child, and they have even taught me how to give any being the most agonizing death imaginable." He said walking over to the Goa'uld, now carrying two things. The first was the bar which was now angled down and glittering in the late afternoon sun that was coming through the canopy, while the other was the canister that he had just removed from his hard-suit. "Catch!" Granger says as he tosses the canister to O'Neill.

Catching the canister O'Neill asks, "What's this for?" as he begins to slowly turn it over.

"You'll see." Granger said walking over to a large rock nearby before dragging the Goa'uld over to it and pinning him to the ground with his foot before he rammed the bar down through his shoulder, the rock and into the dirt behind it.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The Goa'uld screamed again as he struggled to try and remove the bar that was pinning him to the ground.

Granger turned and started walking away seeing that the Goa'uld was going no were. "Pull the pin and toss it at his nuts, then move back." Granger says casually.

O'Neill flips the canister over and Burke just stated to grin like a fined as he read the wording printed on it. "Oh man your crazy Granger. HAHAHAHAHAH! This is perfect!" He said as he pulled the can out of O'Neill's hands and tosses it in between the lifeless legs of the Goa'uld, before leaping away as O'Neill ran for it.

"NO PLEASE!" The Goa'uld screams as the white phosphorous grenade detonates. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" He let out one final bloodcurdling scream as it explodes in a blinding flash that instantly disintegrated his legs and lighting what remained of him on fire.

"Don't you think that was a bit much?" O'Neill asks as he and Burke caught up to Granger on his way back to Newman and the others.

"He would have died from his injuries anyways. The trauma which was sent through his nervous system put an incredible amount of strain on both his lungs and heart." Granger said casually as he continues to walk slowly.

"Fuck!" Says Burke, shocked at what he had just witnessed, "If that is what you've been trained to do to get information remind me never, ever to get in your way or to piss you off."

-{[]}-

"There must be thousands of them?" Says major Carter looking down at all of the drones from the throne room's balcony.

"I'm reading just short of a small division down there." Supplies Welsh having used her tac-pad to scan the formation below.

Unknown to the team, Thoth had returned to the throne room and is moving closer to them while readying his Kara kesh to throw them all over the balcony. "Fools." He says when he is almost right behind them.

Hearing this the team all turn and face the Goa'uld who had snuck up on them. As Thoth is about to fire, Teal'c fires with his Zat'nik'tel only to watch in horror as the energy is deflected over his cloths like it had done days earlier when he and Bra'tac had been fighting the drone at the decimated meeting site between Ramius and Tilgath. Recovering from the energy of the shot Thoth moves to strike again only to realise that he is staring down the barrel of major carters HK-XM8 rifle and lieutenant Welsh micro Valliant linear cannon just before the two women opened fire directly into his eyes killing him instantly. As soon as Thoth's headless body hits the floor the bases internal sensors detect the team's presence and activate the intruder alarms.

"Times up." Says Welsh, bringing up the command codes for all of the demo-charges that she had placed on their search of the base.

"C4." Selmak/ Carter suggests as major Carter pulls out the sub-space comm unit to contact Bra'tac in the scout ship.

"Bra'tac we could use that ride now."

"I will be there momentarily." Replies Bra'tac as she pulls out the detonator for the C4 charges before nodding to Welsh, so that they activate all of the charges at the same time.

As the charges started to go off the team ran like made for their insertion point, due to the fact that they were attempting to escape without being pinned down the fail to notice a drone emerge from a room off the corridor behind them and begin to give chase without it opening fire.

After several minutes of running the team reach the insertion point, with Selmak/ Carter in the lead. "Got it!" he shouts as he triggers the override for the hatch again and the team race through as Welsh activates a Zentron anti-personal trip mine to cover their escape.

Racing across the walkway to the scout ship the team comes under fire from several drones that emerge from the main entrance.

"GO!" Major Carter shouts to Bra'tac as Welsh runs past her into the command area of the scout through the air lock, as the outer doors start to close the hear a thud indicating that something had hit the scout.

"What was that?" Selmak/ Carter asks bent over slightly due to being out of the practice of running for his life, while Bra'tac pilots the ship away as several gliders began to close in on them and the bases own anti-air defences started to open fire.

"Someone has opened the rear external engine-room access hatch." Says Bra'tac as an alert pops up on his flight display.

"We're in flight!" Says major Carter spinning to look at the engine-room just as a drone emerges from the inner access hatch to the engine-room. Instantly both Welsh and major Carter open fire but are swiftly knocked to one side, before they are even down Teal'c opens fire with his Zat'nik'tel only for all the shots to be once more deflected by the drones armour before he is forced to dive for cover when the drone opens fire on him.

Seeing that the drone is distracted by Teal'c's attack Selmak runs past the drones towards the rear cargo area. Detecting a moving target the drone switches targets and gives chasse and passes right by Welsh, who slips a timed nightshade plasma grenade on to the small of the drones back, as it enters the middle of the cargo hold Bra'tac activates the transport cycle for the rings and beams the drone a thousand meters below the ship just as the grenade detonates. Moments later the ship escapes the pursuing gliders by entering the safety of hyper-space.

With the ship safely in hyper-space on the way to the Alpha site, Bra'tac moves over to where Teal'c had dived for cover, as he approaches his former student he bends down to check on him. "Teal'c are you hurt?"

"Indeed." Teal'c replies ass he lays on the deck of the scouts command area.

"Where?" Bra'tac says worried that he may have missed a wound.

"My pride." Jokes Teal'c. "An old man did what I was unable to do."

Hearing the humour in the younger man's voice Bra'tac just smiles and helps him to his feet while over the other side of the command area Selmak/ Carter is helping Welsh to her feet.

"Sam? Sam?" Says Selmak/ Carter as he notices that major Carter was still lying on the deck near to the entrance to the ships airlock unmoving. As he bends down to check on her she starts to get up. "No, don't move, just stay still and let the lieutenant check you out." He says gently pushing her back down while Welsh activated her exo-frames basic medical scanner. "What hurts?"

"Everything." Major Carter says which causes both Selmak/ Carter and Welsh to laugh slightly.

"That's a good sign."

"Nothing too major, ma'am." Welsh says as she takes an auto-injector, filled with pain killers, and stabs it into the major's arm. "This should help with the pain, just follow your dad's advice and lay still for a bit." She finishes moving to the cargo area to start placing the components of her command variant fire force assault system into its transport container.

-{[]}-

"You going to be able to walk on that?" Asks Newman as he finishes applying some bacta-gel to Jackson's leg.

"I've had worse." Jackson says before the resurrected rebel fires a short barrel shotgun into the air hitting the tree above them.

"Telchak's device re-animates dead tissue." Jackson explains very fast as the rebel reloads the shotgun.

"Yeah, whatever!" Rockwell says as he and Newman pull him up and behind the tree he had collapsed into minutes ago. Once they were behind the tree the pair opened fire with their forearm mounted Gottfried repeater cannons, but they failed to bring him down.

"Hay! Get down!" Burke shots as he and granger open fire blowing the man into little pieces due to a combination of a round from the Scorpion pistol and a 40mm grenade.

"What's with the guy from evil dead and the weapons that those three are packing?" Asks Burke as Rockwell and Newman helps Jackson up.

""Um…" Starts Jackson, not knowing what cover story Burke had been given about the three Zentradi.

"Classified."

"Yeah." O'Neill says known that burke wasn't cleared to know the truth.

"You guys are into some crazy stuff, man!" Burke says back to his normal joking self, which makes Jackson look at O'Neill with a look that says 'who is he'.

"You have no idea." O'Neill deadpans thinking of all the crazy stuff he and Jackson had done with in the last six years.

-{[]}-

"The perimeters clear." Says Burke as he finishes sweeping the remains of the makeshift compound with Rockwell as Newman returns from the collecting Lee and Cochrane from their hiding spot. "I've just heard from air rescue, they got the guide." He says making his way over to O'Neill and the others.

"Rogelio?" Asks Jackson leaning on a long stick as a makeshift crutch, knowing that they will owe him at least three days-worth of pay.

"He's going to be ok. They'll be here in about an hour." He says as Jackson, Lee and Cochrane head into the hut that they had found the still active device in, while Newman, Granger and Rockwell move to sit by an aging Russian Kamov Ka-50 'Black Shark' attack helicopter.

"Hay," Says O'Neill playing with the peak of his baseball cap, once the others were out of ear shot, "so nice fire-support back there."

"Sure thing buddy. Anytime, anywhere."

"You know," O'Neill says, thinking if he might be able to convince Hammond to have Burke 'read in' on the SGC, "I was thinking that I should see if I can have you posted to a nicer place."

"A temperate zone?" Says Burke without a second thought, "Not to hot? Not to cold? Fine looking woman that put out like a broken candy machine?"

O'Neill looks at him, debating whether or not he was joking. "Whatever. I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks buddy," He says as he reaches out to shake O'Neill's hand, just as Cochrane, Jackson and Lee return with the device. "So is that the thing which made that guy do that thing?"

"Yeah, it's ok now though it's off." Says Jackson as Lee cautiously holds the device.

"Good. That's good." O'Neill says knowing just how much fun 'murphy' likes to have with the members of SG1, Jackson in particular, when it comes to alien do-hickies.

"Yeah," Says Lee nervously, "well that is to say we think it's off. It's not glowing anymore so…"

"It's the glowing thing that usually gives it away, so if it's not glowing then it shouldn't be on." Elaborates Jackson, used to dumbing down explanations when it comes to explaining things for O'Neill.

"Do you want to hold it?" Asks a very nervous Lee as he tries to pass it off to somebody else.

"Nooo." Jackson and Cochrane both say as they move slightly further away from Lee, causing everyone else to burst out laughing.

-{[]}-

"Chevron seven locked!" Announces the technician from the control room, over the public address system for the SGC as he opens the iris allowing Welsh, Teal'c, Bra'tac, major Carter and Selmak/ Carter to walk through the active wormhole from the Alpha site and down the ramp to where general Hammond, O'Neill, Jackson, Cochrane and commodore Hudson are just entering from the access corridor to the control room.

"So… did you miss me?" Jokes O'Neill with his hands behind his head, noticing that Teal'c has his side bandaged up, major Carter has her arm in a sling and Welsh carrying a small create as well as the backpack she had placed her equipment into.

"Of course sir." Major Carter says smiling at O'Neill's rather bad attempt at a joke.

"Well it can't have been that bad, since you're all back alive."

"As are you, doctor Jackson and lieutenant Cochrane." Says Teal'c noticing that both Jackson and Cochrane where on a set of crutches.

"Daniel?" Asks major Carter raising an eyebrow while looking over at Jackson standing by one of the airman that was manning a GAU-2B/A mini-gun fixed in the gate room.

"I'm fine." He says in response to her unasked question. "The good news is that we managed to get the device, even after being tortured by a Goa'uld sent by Anubis."

"Good." Says a shocked Selmak/ Carter that a Goa'uld had managed to land on the first world, "I would only hope we can counter the energy of it and work out how it works."

"I take it that time is of the essence?" asks Hudson, suddenly feeling like he was back on the frontlines of the 'Battle of Lantea' facing off against the Prometheans.

"Indeed." Says Bra'tac, noticing the small change in the Zentradi commodore. "If we are to have any hope of combating these new warriors then we must."

"We have bad news sirs." Says Welsh having passed the crate to a technician in the gate room so that she could remove her helmet which she places under her arm, "Anubis has an entire army of drone soldier's sir. We counted at least two full infantry battalions worth of them on that planet alone. The best we could do with the equipment we had was to delay his production of anymore and cripple the base."

"We'll debrief properly in one hour." Hammond says as he take Hudson and Selmak/ Carter out of the embarkation room, before stopping at the doorway he had come through moments ago. "Welcome home." He says before heading up to his office to discuss the logistics for helping the Archangel to begin construction of her base on the dark side of the moon.

After a few seconds Jackson leads Bra'tac, Teal'c, Welsh and Cochrane off towards the infirmary leaving Carter and O'Neill at the base of the ramp from the now deactivated stargate, just as SG4 come in from the other entrance chatting while getting ready to go their mission to P3X-2146.

"Hay." Says O'Neill suddenly nervous, and very much aware the looks that the older members of the embarkation room guards were giving him due to the fact that they could tell how he felt about is second-in-command. "So nice first command?" He asks trying to make small talk.

"We did make it out alive, sir." Carter says equally nervous, due to her own feelings.

"There is that." Deadpans O'Neill, before changing the subject and speaking slightly louder than normal so that SG4 could hear him on the other side of the embarkation room. "So lunch, I hear that it is tater tot day in the mess." Before moving off and heading in the direction of the mess with Carter following along and SG4 giving them a glare that would make any of the politicians that want to close down the SGC proud.

* * *

**Authors Note:**

I know I'm evil, beating the guy up with a heated metal bar then setting him on fire with a white phosphorus grenade, but what can I say part of me was upset when in the show they just shot the three rebels in the back but blow up the Zombie. Also really no-body has spotted the 80's cartoon referance's that I've drooped hints into the story other than Macross. Well if your interested they are the three main characters from the Centurions, Jake Rockwell, Ace McCloud and Max Ray as well as the Starmax, Starwolf, and Battlecrane from Starcom: The US space force. I mean I know that they are not that new but come on cartoon Network used to show the centurions on Toonarmi back in the late 1990's

Link to the Centurions intro: watch?v=hIajdXHRmJ4

Link to Starcom: The US Space force intro: watch?v=wKZfwih-3dM


	13. Chapter 12: The battle of Earth

**Chapter 12: The battle of Earth** **and Disclosure**

It had been three days since SG1 had left through the stargate, in an attempt to get a power module from an ancient outpost located on the planet of Proclarush. During their most mission they had located a second device that contained the entire knowledge of the Ancients, like the one that they had found years earlier on P3R-272 which had led to first contact with the Asgard, but in accessing this information they had also attracted the attention of the rouge Goa'uld Anubis to the fact that they were searching for a way to stop him.

"Tell me again why the SGC didn't power that defence platform in the Antarctic that we discovered when we scanned the planet." Dvorak asked, referring to the scan that they had conducted after Cochrane's abduction in Central America, as she paced around the bridge of the Archangel.

"Because the power cell that they found there couldn't power a flashlight, it's completely dead," replied Hudson from his command chair, "don't forget that, that particular power cell has been holding back the ice around that outpost for close to a million years. According to the information that the SGC had the outpost on Proclarush has only been holding back a layer of solidified lava."

"Still you'd think that the Ancients would have at least left instructions on how to make them." Moaned Cochrane from a comm-scan station, "I mean based on the initial scans of it that could've lasted for two or three million years…"

"Contacts." Shouts Welsh from the tactical station instantly stopping all chatter. "Reading two, no three, Ha'tak class ships emerging from hyper-space at blue two one six, orange thirty range sixty thousand."

"So their finally here." Hudson said as he leaned back in his command chair. "Ok then. Battlestations!" he said standing up.

"Aye sir." Said Dvorak, nodding to Welsh who activated the ship wide address system and the alert klaxons.

"Battlestations! Battlestations! Set level one throughout the ship!" Welsh ordered as the newly installed blast shutters closed over the forward viewport.

"Helm take us out!" Hudson ordered, as the MACO at the doors to the bridge primed his FN-P117 and placed it on safe.

"Take us out Aye!" Replied Newman, as he and Campbell launched the Archangel out of her makeshift dry dock on the dark side of the moon, to join the small task force of seven ships from the in defence of the planet.

"We are clear of the dock and are on course to rendezvous with 'Task-force Prometheus'." Campbell reported from the co-pilots seat.

"All weapons are armed and shields are up." Reported Welsh.

"Air wing is on hot standby, and destroids are deployed." Reported Hill from her post at the flight-ops station.

"Excellent." Replied Dvorak turning to face Hudson who nodded in acknowledgement.

-{[]}-

"Message from the SGC." Said Harriman from the communications station on the bridge of the Prometheus. "The Archangel has launched after detecting three Ha'tak class ships in system."

"Alright then… take us out." Orders Hammond as he sits down in the command chair of the recently finished and upgraded bridge of the Prometheus.

"Yes sir."

Above the Prometheus the hanger doors opened slowly as the main engines came online, and the up-graded anti-gravity systems slowly lifted the ship up out of its hanger as the ships new retro-reflective panels activated cloaking the ship from the multiple UFO spotters that were camped out around the perimeter of the Area 51 ship yards.

Once they were clear of the ground the ship accelerates and powers her way out of the atmosphere along with the first four Minerva class ships, Daedalus, Odyssey, Korolev and Sun Tsu, and the only two Nelson class battleships complete, the British ship Nelson, and the Japanese ship Yamato, into a geosynchronous orbit over the dock yards as the Archangel formed up with them.

"We are now in direct orbit over the yards sir." Reported Harriman.

"And the rest of the fleet?" Hammond asked looking out of the reinforced viewport.

"The Daedalus, Odyssey, Korolev and the Sun Tsu of the new Minerva class have formed up along with the two Nelson class, Nelson and Yamato, around us and the Archangel is at Blue twenty three alpha." Major Grant reported from the tactical station.

"Eight ships against three… let's just hope that these upgrades that the Zentron have gave us and have had Carter drooling are as good as they say they are. Bring Gottfried's and Valliant's online and plot a course for the Ha'tak's. give me a firing solution." Hammond ordered as the crew quickly moved to carry out his orders.

"Enemy contacts have changed course, they're weapons are coming online. We have a lock."

"Fire!"

"Firing Gottfried's." Ronson said as he typed the final command to fire the new Gottfried cannons at the Ha'tak's, as the other ships fired.

Outside the ship, twenty-four green beams from the small SGC fleet launched out across space from the Gottfried cannons and slammed into the shields of the lead vessel completely over whelming them, before being destroyed due to a follow up from the four Minerva class's 42cm Isolde triple rail-guns destroying it.

While the small SGC fleet dealt with one ship the Archangel fired all sixteen of her own more powerful Gottfried cannons along with her five Monster class destroids, destroying the shields but failing to punch through their hulls.

"Gottfried's are depleted, we're recharging them now." Grant informed from the tactical station.

"Status on the Ha'tak's?" Asked Hammond somewhat stunned at the firepower of the new Minerva and Nelson classes.

"One enemy ship destroyed, the other two have lost shields but no significant damage to their hulls." Harriman reported from the forward sensor station.

"Incoming!" Shouted Ronson seconds before a dozen superheated plasma rounds impacted the forward shields of the combined fleet.

"Switch to missiles and target their reactors." Ordered Hammond as one of the two remaining ships was destroyed by the Archangels Valliant cannons.

"Target locked."

"Fire!"

From the missile launchers shoot six wombat anti-ship missiles, heading straight towards the remaining Anubis class Ha'tak, which tried in vain to shoot down the missiles but missed by miles due to the speed of the missiles which shredded the hull as if it was made of paper, destroying it in a massive fireball of nuclear enhanced radiation.

"Enemy contacts neutralised!" Ronson reported clearly relieved to have survived his first skirmish with the Goa'uld.

"Damage report?" Hammond quarried as the command chairs security harness released.

"Nothing to serious. The new shields held." Reported Ronson looking at the ships status display.

"All ships report minimal damage sir! The Archangel is launching several fighters and two RC-4 recon ships to sweep the debris." Grant reported as the ships lighting returned to normal.

"It would seem that we survived the frying pan." Harriman started, as he finished securing the ships weapons, to the sensor tech next to him but loud enough to be heard by the rest of the bridge.

"Let's hope that we can survive the fire." Finishes Ronson.

"How many ships is Anubis bringing in exactly?" Asked Grant curious to what they were facing.

"Best guess major," Says Harriman, "close to fifty."

"Eight against fifty." Says Grant, "Not exactly fair."

"I know. Let's hope he has some reinforcements." Jokes Reynolds of SG3 from the entrance hatch with his new FN-P117, and Zentradi assault armour, causing those who had seen the Archangel's main cannon in operation to burst out laughing, releasing the tension which had built up during the battle.

"I hope that SG1 makes it back in time." Says Ronson as he wipes a tear due to laughing so hard.

"Don't we all." Replies Hammond grimly.

-{[]}-

_Combat Log Date: 56497.3_

_Commodore Kira Hudson recording._

_It has been almost a year since our trans-dimensional jump during the defence of Lantea and while we have managed to make all necessary repairs and construct a bare bones dry dock on the surface of Luna, it has come with a heavy price with the loss of admiral Cutter and thirty-seven others due to a complete depolarising of their brain-stems, but despite these losses the crew is in high spirits._

_Since our arrival within the Sol system we have been assisting the defence forces, in the form of the SGC or Stargate Command, in upgrading their defences with first generation Macross Fleet ships namely Minerva, Nelson and Drake class capital ships and Starmax, Star Wolf class fighters and Laser Rapid Assault Trackers, Missile Fox anti-air units and M-6 Rail gunner ground attack vehicles and Battle crane combat cargo lifters. We have also assisted them with upgrading their original, and only space capable battle cruiser, into something which deserves the name. It is now more along the lines of an old type Izumo class cutter in terms of fire power. In fact it's scary how the personal that the SGC has sent for training have picked up the basics of starship operation and space based warfare._

_In fact the lead scientist in the SGC has designed an orbital defence station the size of a Ra Cailum class but with the fire power of a Macross II class super dreadnought, the amount of firepower on the design has made the XO, sub-commander Dvorak, worried stating in the most recent staff meeting this morning 'that it could possibly punch clean through the surface of a planet', but major Carter has said that a station such as that would cause a political nightmare._

_Combat Log: Update_

_We've just been informed that the SGC is expecting an imminent attack on Earth by the rouge Goa'uld Anubis within the next few hours. Although it is unknown just how many vessels we will be facing, the SGC believes that it could be around fifty to sixty Ha'tak class ships to support his flagship and their accompanying glider and Al'kesh compliments, and that their current force of four Minerva class, two Nelson class, the Prometheus and their attached air wings won't be enough, so they have sent their primary recon team, SG1, to locate an additional power source for the defence platform in the Antarctic._

_Though the SGC is a highly secret program, I do wish that they had started working with the group that operates those four helicarrier's, which we detected while conducting a scan for any hidden Ancient or Goa'uld technology, sooner as we could have created two more Starmax squadrons._

-{[]}-

Several hours after the initial scout force had been detected, the recently elected president Henry Hayes looked over towards where general Maynard was, before he gave him a nod to place the call on speaker.

"How are things up there commodore Hudson?" Asked Hayes.

"All's quiet sir." Replied Hudson, "So far Anubis's fleet is holding position about halfway between Sol and Alpha Centauri for some reason."

"Perhaps they have found out what happened to their scout force?" Suggested Vice-president Kinsey.

"I doubt that." Said the director Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. standing next to the tall Seymour case clock placed in the room in the seventies by president Ford, and sheathing that his own personal had been well and truly beaten when it came to information hiding when it came to the SGC.

"And how would…" Kinsey started to retort before a cloaked figure materialized in front of the president's desk, surprising everyone as Fury and the secret service agents all opened fire on the intruder. As the president and his aides all took cover from the near continues fire of nine mill's and a couple of Uzi sub-machine guns, which all passed through the figure as if he wasn't even there.

"Hold Fire!" Shouted Fury realising what it was, "It's only a hologram!" Instantly the weapons fire stopped, as the agents and he returned their weapons to their holsters.

"I am Anubis." The cloaked figure spoke while both Fury and Maynard pulled out a phone to have someone trace the source of the hologram.

"You are the leader of this world?" Asked Anubis due to him and the other Goa'uld had very little or no information regarding the first world since the uprising against Ra thousands of years earlier.

"Henry Hayes," The president says putting on his best politicians smile he could, "President of the United States of America. One nation among many."

"No longer, bow down before your GOD!" Anubis demanded in the typical double-flanged and arrogance filled voice of the Goa'uld.

Hayes and a few others chuckled at that statement while some of the others actually laughed at it. "I don't think so, but I am willing to discuss the terms of your surrender."

"If you had the weapons used by the Ancients, you would have used them." Anubis said smugly knowing he had an agent with the two Shol'va's Bra'tac and Teal'c as SG1 raced across the galaxy for some unknown reason.

"We do." Replied Hayes smugly, "Or did you think that the scout fleet you sent to us was taken out by a giant space whale or something?"

Anubis was stunned and his body posture showed it. "Then you have brought down the destruction of you and your world." Anubis said knowing that the fleet he had would deal a heavy amount of damage to the earth before being destroyed.

"Not. Going. To. Happen." Hayes said poking the hologram squarely in the chest.

"We shall see." Anubis declares before he vanished from the room as his hologram was deactivated.

"What do you think?" Asked Hayes turning to face the rest of the room. "Too much?"

-{[]}-

Meanwhile in orbit on the Archangel the command crew had moved into observation lounge just off the bridge while they were in conference with president Hayes, when Anubis appeared.

"Archangel, this is general Maynard can you track the source of Anubis' transmission?" He asked as the sound of Anubis and Hayes talking in the background could be heard. "I've already got the other ships working on it, as does director Fury whit his helicarrier's."

"We'll try general." Says Hudson as Cochrane moved to get up and leave the room, but before he could get out of the room, a ship wide alert went out.

"Battlestations! Battlestations! Set level one throughout the ship! Commodore Hudson to the bridge! Battlestations! Battlestations!"

Hearing this the command crew scrambled out of their seats and filled out of the observation lounge and back onto the bridge.

"Report!" Commanded Hudson as he sat back in his command chair.

"Sir, sensors are picking up several large hyper-space distortions opening in sector two alpha." Hill reported.

"Confirmed," Said Dvorak, "Reading forty-five Ha'tak class motherships and one dreadnought class."

"Must be Anubis flagship." Mused Hudson as he looked on at the largest ship he had seen so far this last year.

"Sir twenty of them are breaking formation and are heading right at us. The rest are targeting the satellite network and the international space station." Welsh informed him taking back over at the tactical station from Hill.

"Oh, how original." Snarls Dvorak and Granger. "They are going to blind the communications network." Before they both burst out laughing.

"Alright then, send a signal to the Prometheus were engaging. Set an intercept course with the approaching Ha'tak's and ready wombats."

Outside in space the area between the two forces lit up as multiple missiles, Valliant's, Gottfried's and Isolde cannons were fired vaporising two of the approaching Ha'tak's.

"Enemy ships are returning fire." Welsh reported as the forward shields were splashed with plasma shots.

The Ha'tak's returned fire having increased speed to close the distance on the SGC's fleet as they accelerated out of their home world's gravity well. The plasma bolts splashed across the omni-directional barriers of the Archangel, Prometheus and the other ships, as Al'kesh and squadrons of gliders began to launch and close to their much shorter staff cannon range.

"Shields are holding." Welsh reported calmly. "Enemy fighters and bombers closing in."

"Launch all ghost's and Thunderbolt's. Tactical task all destroids to anti-air. Fire wombats at the approaching capital ships and ready positron cannons alpha and beta."

There was a chorus of acknowledgements from around the bridge, as from around the fleet multiple fighters began launching from their motherships. Soon the air around the SGC's fleet was filled with two hundred forty ghost Mk II drone fighters, one hundred and twenty Thunderbolt mark VII veritech fighters with full F.A.S.T. packs, two hundred type III Star Wolf space superiority fighters, one hundred Starmax mid-range bombers, twenty F-302 Evolution fighter interceptors and three Thunderbolt Durandal class veritechs, which moved to immediately to intercept and engage their Goa'uld designed counterparts. Soon the two fighter armadas' were engaged with each other in a massive fur ball of craft but the first kills went to the drone fighters, backed up by the CIWS systems of the Terran fleet, tearing apart anything that made it through the fighter screen.

Just as the weapons fire from the advancing Ha'tak's intensified, wombat anti-ship missiles shot out of their launchers on all of the fleet and raced across space and slammed into twelve of the remaining eighteen Ha'tak's, that had been attacking the satellites, collapsing their shields from the power of the powerful anti-ship missiles.

A second later the four Minerva class battle cruisers destroyed them with their 42cm Isolde cannons, the rounds quickly transited the wounded Goa'uld motherships sending them up in massive Naquadah fuelled explosions.

"Fourteen Ha'tak's destroyed sir, but the remaining six have shifted their fire from the satellites back to the fleet, three of which have targeted us." Welsh reported.

"Fire positron cannons alpha and beta!" Ordered Dvorak from the CIC, as Newman and Campbell altered the position of the ship so that all three attacking motherships could be destroyed at the same time.

The six Ha'tak's continued their assault on the Tau'ri warships, unleashing a hailstorm of plasma bolts down on them. The ships of the SGC fleet responded in kind with the Nelson and Yamato launching multiple salvos of mark seven naquadah enhanced wombat's which slammed into the shields of two of the Ha'tak's, as they detonated they took out a third damaged ship turning them into a massive field of debris.

Seeing the sight of twenty of his first line Ha'tak's being destroyed, Anubis ordered the rest of his fleet to advance and attack, a further twenty-five motherships and his own flagship to attack.

"They're concentrating their fire on the Daedalus!" Welsh reported with a hint of worry to her voice. "Korolev and Sun Tsu are moving to assist."

"What about the rest of the enemy fleet?" Hudson asked as a console behind him exploded from an overload.

"Seventeen mothership including tango Alpha have almost completely destroyed the orbital satellites and are positioning themselves for an orbital strike." Dvorak reported with concern that they were about to bear witness to a rain of death.

"Sir I'm detecting a new hyperspace distortion opening over the South Pole… it's a scout ship." Hill shouted in surprise.

"That has to be SG1" Hudson concluded as he watched the small scout-ship came out of the hyper-space on top of the upper atmosphere and dived into it, almost out of control.

"I'm detecting multiple gliders and Al'kesh on an intercept course for the scout." Hill supplied somewhat calmed down now.

"Inform the Prometheus that we're breaking orbit and will cover the scout ship. Helm set course for the South Pole max burn. Flight inform all the birds to switch to attack pattern 'Big Wednesday' formation." Hudson ordered which was followed by a chorus of 'yes sir' from the two officers.

"What about the surface?" Dvorak asked, praying that Hudson wasn't about to let his Varauta side get the better of him.

"I think that Anubis is in for one hell of a shock." Hudson replied cryptically, knowing that there was four helicarrier's armed with Valliant's and enough missiles to punch a hole in the Archangel.

-{[]}-

"Milord the largest Tau'ri ship has abandoned its position." Report's a Jaffa manning the weapons console in the Pel'tak of Anubis flagship. "It appears to be moving to protect the cargo ship that has just come out of hyperspace. What are your orders, milord?"

"Bring us into position over it and destroy it!" Anubis commanded from where he was at the viewport, and watched as the Archangel turned and left orbit while delivering a devastating broadside into another of his precious upgraded Ha'tak's.

"We are firing position." The Jaffa stated as he moved the massive dreadnought into firing position over the planets southern pole.

"Fire!" Anubis ordered, as hundreds of rounds of superheated plasma began to rain down from the gun-ports on the underside of the massive ship, striking the shields of the Archangel and the ice surrounding it melting a huge area of the Antarctic ice-shelf. The shields on the Archangel flared as they with stood the attack with hardly any strain but the ice shelf wasn't so lucky.

"The human attack ship is abandoning its position." The Jaffa at the weapons station shouted out as the Archangel seemed to abandon its defence of the scout. "Milord our forces are in position to begin the bombardment of the surface."

"Begin the attack."

"Milord several ships have appeared and are launching weapons… they appear to be of Tau'ri design."

"WHAT!" Roared Anubis, just as the first rounds fired from the heli-carriers slammed into several of his precious upgraded Ha'tak's where vaporised. "What happened?" Anubis demanded as he spun to face the unfortunate Jaffa on the Pel'tak.

"Tau'ri weapons fire milord." The Jaffa replied somewhat worried. "Five Ha'tak's are lost and the remaining fifteen have been forced to abandon their position in order to defend themselves from further weapons fire."

"What of the banner ship?" Anubis questioned barely keeping his anger in check, and mistaking the Archangel for a ship belonging to the Tau'ri.

"It is on an approach vector."

"Destroy it!" Anubis ordered, hoping that with its destruction he would be able to decolorize the fleet and end the threat of the Tau'ri once and for all.

-{[]}-

"The cargo ship is clear sir." Hill reported as the weapons fire from the dreadnoughts heavy planetary assault cannons began to bleed through the Archangels shields and pin-point barriers.

"Helm set course for Anubis' flagship." Hudson says turning to face Welsh. "Lieutenant move all the destroids to the bow prepare for a Macross Strike."

"Aye sir." Newman and Welsh replied as the Archangel begins its rapid ascent up into orbit taking fire that was raining down on it.

"Forward shields are down to forty-five percent and falling." Reported Welsh as she adjusted the fire rate for the forward Gottfried's.

"Hold course!" Hudson ordered activating his security harness, "Transfer power from the aft shields, if we are going to pull off the 'Macross Strike' we will need the forward shields."

"Aye sir."

"Sir, I'm detecting a large energy source coming from the surface." Said Cochrane at the only comm-scan station that was dedicated for science. "It's heading straight for us."

"EVAD! Hard to port!" Screamed Hudson as the first of the ancient designed plasma drones began to overtake them on a course for the dreadnought.

-{[]}-

"Milord! I am detecting a large energy surge coming from the planet." The Jaffa at the weapons controls said in shock.

"WHAT!" Anubis shouted turning to look at the Jaffa in question, before the explosive flash of a nearby Ha'tak exploding being hit by a large swarm of the glowing orangeish yellow smart projectiles, which was now headed straight for his dreadnought and remaining Ha'tak's.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" He screamed in anger while thinking that the time of the Goa'uld's reign over the galaxy was at an end and the rise of the Tau'ri was now beginning.

As the ancient plasma smart drones swarmed around and through what was left of Anubis's fleet, the various fighters and bombers destroyed or crippled all of the gliders and Al'kesh till all that remained was a debris field of broken ships, fighters and bombers from the Goa'uld fleet that had begun their attack several hours earlier.

The battle for Earth was over, and the Tau'ri had won.

-{[]}-

"Your such an ASS!"

The words hit captain John Andrews, call sign Marauder, from behind just as he stepped down from the cockpit of his Thunderbolt Durandal veritech fighter onto the hanger deck of the Archangel and finished removing his flight helmet. Confused, he turned around to see captain Jenny Revell, call sign Angel, marching towards him with her usual scowl firmly in place on her face.

"What are you talking about?" He asked completely confused.

"You know damn well what the frack I'm talking about!" Revell snapped as she came to stand face to face with him. "It was my assignment to cover the Yamato, and here you come swooping in and take out that bomber yourself!"

"That was you?" Andrews asked.

"Yes damn it! That was me!" Revell said, her face turning as red as her long red hair.

"Oh, sorry." Andrews said yawning as his adrenalin levels, from the recent combat, started to fade and leave his body.

"Sorry? You swoop in like that and try to make me look like an incompetent ass, and all you have to say is 'sorry'."

"A what?" Andrews asked confused.

"You know what you did!" Revell nearly screamed. "You just had to show off how much of a better pilot than me you really are!"

Andrews turned and fixed her with a hard stare and the anger radiating from his eyes made Revell take an involuntary step back. "That bomber was spinning up its plasma cannons for another bomb run on the bridge of the Yamato and you wouldn't have made it in time." He explained slowly. "Crowbar and I had been chasing that thing, trying to take it out for around ten minutes chasing it halfway around the planet. I didn't 'swoop in' to make you look like anything. In fact, I would rather have let the thing be taken out by someone else because we'd been in our birds for over three hours on the CAP when all of this went down."

Turning away Andrews tossed his helmet to the crew chief and began walking off before coming to a stop and turning back to face her. "You need to understand this." He said wearily. "I am not here to make you look like anything. I'm here to do my job, just because we have a history, doesn't mean that everything that I do revolves around you. Now if you will excuse me, I have a report to write and then a hot date with a very long shower."

Turning away he left a very thunderstruck angel, and the nearby deck crew, behind and made his way to the CAG's office.

-{[]}-

Over the earth the remaining small fleet of the defence force orbited silently scanning space for any approaching hyperspace trails. They had spent most of the last few hours reloading the ammunition, supplies and repairing what damage had been taken to both the ships and support craft. The Korolev and Sun Tsu had been carefully dropped from orbit with the assistance of her sisters. The damage received by both ships had rendered them incapable of returning to the dry dock or the Archangel's dock on the dark side of the moon.

The few remaining large sections of the destroyed Ha'tak's and the dreadnought had been gathered up by the other ships and transported down to the tarmac outside of the hangers on Area 51, even with the plainly visible battle above the planet the forces of the SGC and their allied nations still had to maintain their cover, if that was still even possible. The electronic warfare, cyber-warfare suites and their retro-reactive panelling on the fleet had been enough to keep most of the world from knowing the locations of the construction docks. However it was evident that they would be sought out by the public to find out about the ships of the fleet and those that had built them.

Losses and damage to the fleet had reduced their number to five capital ships, which were still fully operational, and less than half of the earth manned 302's, Starmax and Star Wolfs, but all of the Archangel's veritech fighters were still combat capable due to their transformation ability, but each of the pilots, crewman and officers were exhausted, and knew that if there was another attack before they had a chance to rest, then they would be unlikely to survive. They had used a lot of their available ammunition in the battle with Anubis, and the weapons platform was out of action with colonel O'Neill in a coma in stasis due to knowledge of the Ancients in his head slowly killing him. Even with the technological advantage they had they would be unable to defend the planet and it's people if they had to fight their own fatigue as well.

The Archangel had stayed in orbit over the crater that used to be Hong Kong, China. Their position had allowed them to send emergency personal from the military bases on the other side of the planet to help in the desperate cities, as well as retrieve or transfer soldiers, medical workers, injured people and supplies between the different areas of the planet. Several of the more intact Thunderbolt squadrons had been rearmed, refuelled and equipped with fresh FAST packs, and where currently patrolling the orbital plane for any signs of hidden ships or incoming signals. Any other operation fighter, be they Starmax or Star Wolf, flittered between the other ships patrolling the orbit and taking pot shots at any unexploded ordinance or out of control Goa'uld craft that had entered the atmosphere.

Far below the orbiting Zentradi warship the surface of the planet was in complete chaos. Much of the eastern hemisphere was clouded with dust and fire as the aftermath of the bombardment became evident, billions of tons of earth and rock had been pulverised, then scattered and thrown into the air by the shockwaves and fireballs that were the legacy of the four Ha'tak's. All of the impact sites were hidden below the clouds of smoke and dust which was encompassing the majority of that part of the world. Immense fires were still burning around the edge of the craters and even the deep winter of Russia had been insufficient to totally extinguish them, it was fortunate that the heavy snow and wind had managed to dampen the burning fires down to an almost manageable level.

President Hayes looked over the table at the number of high ranking officials that had been brought up to the Archangel and leaned back in his chair at the head of the table. After a few moments of silence he asked the question on every bodies mind.

"Where do we go from here?"

It was general Hammond, with his arm in a sling, who spoke up first. "Mister president I don't believe we can cover up something of this scale like we previously have. We detonated a lot of high-yield nuclear ordinance in orbit over a dozen countries worldwide and with all of the satellites that have been destroyed, I very much doubt that the world will just accept another cover story like a meteor shower or a solar flare."

"I have to agree mister president." Said director Furry speaking from the bridge of helicarrier number sixty-four over the comm-link.

"Alright then, what are our options?" Hayes asked.

"You need to hold a conference and prepare for full disclosure. It might be a good idea for all of the leaders of the IOA to be present for it rather than just the United States or any individual country." Says Hudson remembering his history of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation class dealing with its formation back home. "You need to send a message to everyone on earth saying 'that you will stand together no matter what', mister president."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later." Hammond added, "We knew that we couldn't keep the program under wraps forever."

"Alright. I'LL try and organize a conference at the U.N. for some time in the next few days." Hayes said as an aide walks in an interrupts the meeting.

"Sir, we've established communications with the Russian, British and Chinese premiers."

"About time, alright people, keep the fleet in orbit and standby once all repairs are done, God only knows what will happen once the rest of the system lords find out that we've kicked Anubis' ass. It would be best to be prepared." Hayes ordered, turning to face his aide. "Give me a minute then have them put through, Michelle."

"Yes mister president." The Aide said as Hudson and the others left the starboard observation lounge on the Archangel being ushered out by Hayes secret service agents allowing Hayes a chance to see a MACO in full combat gear by the door before he took a deep breath to centre himself and took a long sip of the raktajino coffee that Hudson had gave to him, before hitting the flashing button on the conference table in front of him. Hayes was instantly put through to a four-way conversation between him and the other world leaders, taking a deep breath he now wished that he had contacted at least one of these men before all of this had started four days ago, he could have used the support especially from the other IOA members. "Gentleman."

"Mr president." Said the British prime minister, Tony Blair.

"Good… Mr presid…" Started the Russian premier, Vladimir Putin, over a static filled line.

"Mr President." Said the Chinese President, Jiang Zemin.

"I've been receiving periodic reports from your countries. I'm deeply sorry that we were unable to stop those Ha'tak's from firing on your countries. We tried everything we could to keep them from reaching weapons range, and damaging our world. We were lucky that only a few managed to open fire otherwise we could be looking at the total destruction of our civilization."

"Mr… dent," Said Putin. "We thank… for your worlds. It is both fortunate and unfortunate that the plasma shots hit where they did, there… few people in that area at this time of year, what few people we have found so far will… to settle elsewhere."

"This is not the case for my people." Zemin spoke up. "The shots have vaporised both Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and sent tidal waves into the coastal regions of the mainland as far as Qingyuan. Hundreds of thousands of miles of farmland and food processing plants have been destroyed and approximately seventeen million people have died or are missing. More and more of my people are dying from the radiation's fall out and the dust clouds. Mr president… we need help or many of my people will be decimated due to the lack of food and shelter."

"Alright Jiang, we'll help as much as we can, the Zentradi have already started to launch craft filled with medic's and M.A.S.H. units, and we've other off world allies en route to assist us was we…" started Hayes, before he was interrupted by Putin.

"More Aliens! It is your reliance upon these aliens and the American belief in their superiority which has caused this catas…phe. Your unwillingness… leave them alone has brought …upon us!" Spat Putin. "In addition your delay… allowing the members… IOA the access… the plans for building your space capable warships… stopped us from having more ships… defend the planet!"

Blair coughed loudly to interrupt his Russian counterpart. "Oh please Vlad, if I'm not mistaken only two squadrons of the Korolev's compliment of six squadrons were involved in the battle as it was. While every fighter that the American's, French, German, Chinese, Australian, Zentradi and my own nations, but only a third of your force where involved. If they had all been up there then perhaps none of those motherships would have made it into orbit." He said calmly.

"… untrue, all of the forces that we could spare were in orbit. We were forced to hold back some for the defence of mother Russia, in case the American's incompetent forces… allowed to breach our airspace." Putin counted. "What of that massive battlefortress of these Zentradi. You promised us with our support and that of the rest of the IOA would not only share in the fruits of the project, but that we will be full partners in this. Yet not one Russian scientist or Spetsnaz are part of the SGC. It is the incompetence of the 'superior' American military that cost the lives of so many of China's people."

"I'm sorry but none of your people passed the security screening for the projects. In addition Mr Putin, when the call went out none of the other nations kept their space forces back, expect you." Hayes replied sternly. "Now I understand that you wanted to defend your own country, but the F-302, Starmax and Star Wolf and the ships of the fleet were designed and produced under the guarantee that all of the forces produced, would be used for the defence of Earth as a whole. Now with the dissemination of the information about the 302, wolf and Starmax to our allies we should have been able to send up more fighters and bombers than we did, we know that they exist but that there aren't enough pilots to fly them. However your country has been building and training as long as the UK, and the rest, yet you sent up only a fraction of what everyone else did."

"Our airspace needed…"

"You are dragging your feet!" Zemin said holding back his contempt for his Russian opposite. "We have all begun building warships and fighter squadrons, yet you have not even begun construction of a drake class frigate since the plans for them, the upgraded Prometheus, the Nelson class and the Minerva were given to each of us, even the Korolev was given to you in payment for the US getting the alpha stargate off you last year. Maybe it is better for you to leave the fighting to the real soldiers, those who know how to fight this kind of enemy."

"You dare to insult the Russian people's courage and the honour of mother Russia's armed forces!" Putin roared. "We would build ships of our own if the Americans would allow us access to the proper materials, but we have so far been denied access because we refuse to allow observers and technical experts to be placed throughout our construction facilities. My administration unlike past ones, are not so spineless as to roll over and let the Americans rub our belly like a puppy."

"No, you would merely wait until we have fought to the last before stabbing us all in the back with the ships that you would hoard even as the Goa'uld bomb us back into the stone age. It is simple, you are afraid of them, afraid that your vaunted pilots would not be up for the battle." Zemin shouted. "Dozens of our best pilots died up in orbit, more are scared for life and the small fleet of warships we have has been crippled by the enemy. And yet you, claim that you couldn't send your pilots or you can't build ships because of your own cowardice. You are so very, very lucky that I haven't sent the Sun Tsu to teach you a lesson."

"It is you that needs a lesson Jiang, any forces you send will be…"

"Will you two SHUT THE HELL UP!" Hayes shouted slamming his hands down on to the conference room table. "The two of you are acting like children, I am damned aware of what happened up there. My own country has one man in a coma in a stasis unit due to the Goa'uld. We've lost contact with outposts and bases in South Pacific, Australia and close to the other impact sites. It is unfortunate what has happened but this isn't the time to argue over who's' fault it is. The fate of hundreds of millions worldwide hangs on the knife edge. Every country we have been able to contact has begun mobilizing their forces, and humanitarian efforts have already begun thanks to the Zentradi and our ships. Right now we need to get people away from the danger zones and into allied territory."

Stopping to take a breath and calm down, he noticed that none of the other leaders had begun to talk again. Taking this as a good sign that he was being listened to, he began again in a more calm and controlled manner.

"I know that none of your countries has suitable reserves to fully remove the injured and those in danger from the strikes, however you will be receiving aid as and when we can get it in position. Within the next few days I shall be informing the world of what happened here. We shall disclose what the public needs to know and why this happened."

"You can't be serious!" Blair said shocked. "This will cause worldwide panic when they learn about the existence of the stargate. The fall out, pardon the expression, will be chaotic as people will demand to know why they have been kept in the dark all of this time. You and many of us will be under fire from our respective parties."

"Believe me Tony I am well aware of the implications of this. I've got the joint chiefs on my ass, the SGC, Vandenberg and god only knows who else trying to co-ordinate our efforts on this. This is the last thing I want to do, but in order to explain how we are fixing this mess we have to explain who it was that attacked and what happened up there, and that's something I really don't want to do."

Silence reigned as the four heads of state realized the implications of a full disclosure. None of the countries that made up the IOA would be safe from the inevitable catastrophe that would come from the American's finally admitting their use of the stargate. Worse still would be that fact that they had been involved in a worldwide conspiracy to keep it from the population of the planet at large, time was not on their side at all.

"I think that it will be a bad decision to reveal the gate to the public Henry," Zemin said before forestalling any interruption, "I am very much aware of the fact that my country has been pushing for a full disclosure to the world, but at this time the knowledge of the stargate and its full impact on Earth, coupled with the full scale attack by Anubis would be dangerous. I apologise for my harsh words earlier, my nation is on the precipice and we are still getting reports on our losses coming in."

"Apology accepted Jiang, it's not been easy on any of us today." Hayes said sitting back in his chair, "I may not like the idea, but I think that disclosure is our best bet."

"It may not be Henry, I agree with Jiang. It is too dangerous to let the world as a whole know about the stargate. The damage it caused to international relations last year when it was just the core members was unfortunate, with the gate public knowledge some countries, notably the middle-east and North Korea, will wonder what else has been kept from them."

"What so you suggest Tony?" Hayes asked, "The fact that Anubis was stopped as well as the inevitable sightings of SHIELD's helicarrier's, our ships and the fighter squadrons over the next few days will let cat out of the bag. The Zentradi will have to be allowed into low orbit or lower to help out our own people. I can't see us not letting the world know."

"I'm not sure Henry, but a full disclosure is not an option."

"Maybe not, gentlemen, but I think that I have idea." Putin replied. "It might be a good idea if we were to disclose some parts about the Goa'uld, the Zentradi, the Asgard and our ships on to the various news networks. Not a full disclosure but enough to keep the world from panicking."

"That might be a good idea, considering the state of affairs." Said Blair.

"Alright then," Said Zemin, "tell me Henry have we heard from the Asgard?"

"No we haven't, and with colonel O'Neill in a critical condition I was hoping that they would drop by and check if we're alright but clearly they are preoccupied at the moment."

"I thought that the Asgard were supposed to be our allies." Asked Blair with a sound of disappointment in his voice. "Where were they when Anubis was knocking on Earths door?"

"The Asgard are currently at war with a race called the Replicators and have been gradually losing ground over the last several centuries. It's not really that much of a surprise that they couldn't spare a ship to help." Hayes responded.

-{[]}-

"Have you seen the news?" Doctor Weir asked as she walked into the control room with Jackson stopping just behind the technician who was filling in for Harriman who was still on the Prometheus.

"I've been trying to actively avoid it." Jackson admitted, taking a sip of his coffee still trying to warm up after his recent trip to Antarctica. "You know I was expecting a worldwide panic, not this."

"It took me by surprise as well." Agreed Weir.

"I just hope that the middle-east settles down soon now that the world knows that we've got bigger problems to deal with." Jackson said with a slight sigh.

"So did you enjoy your time on ZNN, with major Carter and Teal'c?" She asked teasing him a little.

"No." He responded, "I didn't mind it so much until they began asking me questions about the first mission through the gate… you know."

"I see…" Weir said, nodding in understanding having read the file about the mission, so she knew how painful it must have been.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" The technician in front of them said, as the stargate began its dialling from off-world, while the iris closed and defence teams rushed into the embarkation room as an incoming wormhole was established. "We're receiving a signal, it's a text message." He says as symbols start to appear on the computer screen.

"It's Goa'uld." Says Jackson shocked, as he starts to read the message.

"What does it say?"

"Um, oh it's from one of the system lords, Camulus, the Celtic god of war."

"I don't think that I've heard of this one?"

"Well we've never actually had any dealings with him until now." Jackson says as he continues to read the message which looked more like an e-mail then an actual text till he reaches a small section, which he has to read twice and almost shouting "Wow!"

"Uh, year of course, wow?" Says Weir confused since she can't read Goa'uld.

"Huh, oh sorry." Says as sheepish Jackson. "It says that he wishes to arrange a meeting with us to negotiate a treaty with us."

"A Goa'uld wants to arrange a treaty with us?" Asks Weir a little stunned, along with the rest of the control room.

"Not just a Goa'uld, all of them." Jackson elaborates, "The system lords. It's asking permission to send a small number of them to earth to talk with us, directly."

"And here I thought that I was going to be able to watch the president's address to the U.N." Weir sighed as the gate shutdown.

-{[]}-

"Good evening, the main story tonight a number of world leaders have called for a press conference to inform the world about the recent attack by what has now been confirmed as an Extra Terrestrial attack and the use of nuclear weapons several days ago. The leaders of the world's four most powerful military powers have been confirmed as being in support of the US president, Henry Hayes, when he speaks to a full assembly of all of the United Nations shortly."

"For the past four days the world has watched and prayed as thousands of men and women from all over the world have headed to the devastated cities in order help those who have survived in the blast zones. The death tolls in the blast zones around Europe, China, Russia and Australia have already hit the one hundred million and is expected to rise."

"Every major power around the world is holding at their maximum state of military readiness in case there is another attack by what was been called the 'Goa'uld', ground, air and naval units have been deployed on a war footing within their borders of their home countries, many for the first time since the end of World War Two. Other more secretive units have been assembling on bases within the borders of the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and the Peoples Republic of China within the last twelve hours."

"From RAF Lossiemouth our defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt reports." Said Kay Burley in the London news room of the BBC.

"As you can see behind me, there are a number of very advanced looking fighter and transport aircraft being readied for take-off. These terrifying vehicles are the vanguard of what has been reported as 'The Space Force' that has been constructed in secret by a number of allied governments over the last few years."

"These fighters are also believed to have been part of the force which repulsed the invasion attempts on our planet less than a week ago. Footage gathered from members of the public show that a large number of these aircraft landed heavily damaged and even some trailing smoke and debris as they attempted to land. It is possible that the gathering of aircraft here are all that remains of this highly advanced fighter wing."

"Reports of a full sized carrier ship under construction off the coast of Scotland have so far been unconfirmed, however a number of eyewitnesses saw a blackened and burnt air vessel larger than any seen before land at an unidentified island. Whilst we don't know the full size of Her Majesties Armed Forces contribution to the defences of this planet from outside attack, we can know be named as one of the few countries on Earth that are capable of fielding a substantial presence within the Solar System beyond the atmosphere of Earth."

"Thousands of members of the public have begun to surround RAF bases on all sides in an attempt to see one of these fantastic aircraft, where they are based and how they defeated the Goa'uld attack. It appears however that many of the answers will not be given easily. Caroline Wyatt, BBC News RAF Lossiemouth."

"Thanks Caroline. Demonstrators from a number of groups have been camping out throughout London and a number of towns close to RAF, Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Army bases across the country, members of Greenpeace, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament are among the various anti-war groups that begun demonstrating outside a number of British and NATO military bases."

"This has led to some instances of violence between the protesters and those who are in support of the military, with several hundred from either side having been arrested by military and civilian police forces at each of the sites."

"We cross now live to the floor of the general assembly hall where president Hayes and the other members of the allied nations have gathered. The meeting is scheduled to begin momentarily. We will stay on the air until the conference has ended when we shall return to our discussion panel to continue our analyse of these ground breaking events…"

-{[]}-

"This is a bad idea," Hayes said to himself, "Jiang, if I get lynched I'm taking you with me."

"Fear not Henry," The other politician was joking. "I believe that this version of events will bring the people of earth onto our side in droves without having to hide the construction projects, or the funds to build up the fleet which we'll need to protect the planet from the Goa'uld or anyone else like these Replicators."

"I for one, would much rather not have to build my countries ships on the remote islands in the Outer Hebrides when we have perfectly good dry-docks and infrastructure on the banks of the Mersey." Said Blair grinning at his opposites. "Still it will be a relief if the world as a whole can begin to fund the projects we need for the defence of the planet, like that battle station that one of the scientist at the SGC has come up with."

"I couldn't have said it better myself Tony." President Putin said as he walked up behind the British prime minister. "With the funding we hope to gain from the countries of the world the expansion of the fleet is within our reach. We can only hope that any new technologies can be found to make our ships more effective."

"That as may be gentleman, but I believe that it is time for us to face the music." Hayes replied, not happy that Blair and the others had seen major Carters proposed orbital space dock and battle-station idea. "Good luck to us all."

-{[]}-

The space above the moon tore open as the hyperspace window stretched open and deposited the Asgard science vessel Daniel Jackson back into normal space. The Daniel Jackson was armed like all Asgard vessels but was no were near the size of or as well armed as the mighty Jack O'Neill class battleships, measuring in at a touch over a thousand meters.

Nearby a mixed group of fighters had detected the arrival of the Asgard ship and were vectoring to face the newcomer, and Thor couldn't help but be impressed with how the Terran's and the Zentradi worked well together and the recent additions to the Tau'ri forces. He quickly scanned the ships and fighters in the system and was slightly surprised at the technology which was being employed by both of them. It was old Alteran technology, on all of the ships and fighters, even the Zentradi ones, to be sure when compared to the more 'modern' technology but it was certainly a vast improvement from the original earth based and salvaged Goa'uld technology level of earth and her people.

It even used Neutronium which the Alteran's had used before they perfected their first zero-point energy modules. The warships even employed a mix of old Asgard and Alteran energy and kinetic weapons and missiles from before the first generation of plasma drones where created.

Judging from his scans of the Tau'ri capital ships were an even match for two or three Ha'tak class motherships in a head-to-head confrontation but it would take at least several of them to best an older model Baliskirnir class battle ship. Still he wouldn't try to take the technology away from them, since it had been gifted to them by what was in essence their cousins, and they had proven themselves worthy of it on numerous occasions. Not the least of which was their recent defence of Earth against the rouge Goa'uld Anubis.

"It would seem that they are well on their way to becoming the fifth race." Thor mused.

"Indeed." Teal'c agreed having seen how the people of Earth had reacted for a short time following Anubis attack, before heading to the Asgard homeworld with major Carter.

"We are being hailed." Thor said as the image of one of the Tau'ri ships commanders appeared on the holo-screen that had formed in front of Thor and Teal'c.

"This is Steven Caldwell of the Minerva class battle carrier Daedalus to unknown vessel. You have entered controlled space. Identify yourself and intensions." The man spoke clearly as his ships Isolde cannon took aim at Thor's ship.

"I am supreme commander Thor of the Asgard high council." The Asgard military leader replied. "I have Teal'c of SG1 aboard, we are here for doctor Jackson and colonel O'Neill."

"Understood." Caldwell nodded in response, "We've been expecting you… where is major Carter? I was told that she was sent with Teal'c in an attempt to make contact with you?"

Thor took a few moments to think how best to answer without it sounding condescending. "I am afraid that the situation has changed. Major Carter has been captured by the Replicators and we are in need of further assistance."

"What can we do to help?" Caldwell asked curious as to what had actually happened.

"At this time all I require is doctor Jackson and colonel O'Neill." Thor replied curtly as he scanned the planet for the correct and corresponding life signs.

"We're here if you require anything else." Caldwell concluded before he closed the channel from his end and allowing the screen to flicker out of existence.

"Do you have a lock on doctor Jackson and O'Neill?" Teal'c inquired.

"Yes." Thor replied before a flash of blueish white light signalled the arrival of Jackson on the bridge of the Asgard ship. He took a few seconds to get his bearings before merely shrugging and goes back to drinking his cup of coffee which he was holding.

"Hay guys." He says totally unconcerned by the fact that he had just been transported from his office deep within the SGC to an alien, though allied, ship in orbit.

"The Asgard's new homeworld of Orilla is in danger of being attacked by the Replicators." Thor stated calmly as he continued to scan for O'Neill's life signs. "We have come here in order to discover a solution to that problem and to save O'Neill's life."

"Okay… so where's Sam?" Jackson asked knowing that she had gone with Teal'c in the modified cargo ship several days earlier.

"She was captured by the Replicators." Teal'c responded with a slight hint of regret in his voice. "The ship that she was on was destroyed however there is a small chance that she survived and is still alive Daniel Jackson."

"Soo… what are your going to do?" Jackson asked just as there was another flash of blueish white light signalling the arrival of O'Neill having been beamed directly into a stasis pod, not as sophisticated as the one in the Antarctic outpost, to help keep him alive during the trip back to Orilla.

"I'm going to connect his mind to the ships computer in order to access the knowledge of the Ancients stored there." Thor explained while he finished the interface and setting up the monitors for O'Neill's vital signs.

"Okay…" Says Jackson nodding not really understanding all of it except that it was probably going to be along the lines of the movie 'The Matrix' which he and Frasier had gone to see the other week, as chaperone's for Cassie's high school.

"Hello? Hello? Testing, testing. One. Two. Three, this thing on. Hellooooo." O'Neill asks over the ships internal comm-system.

"Jack?" Jackson asked glad that he could hear his friend's voice and understand it without having to translate it first.

"Daniel?" O'Neill deadpanned.

"You're not speaking in Ancient anymore?"

"So?"

"Your mind is interfaced with the Daniel Jackson and it is translating it from Ancient into English O'Neill." Thor explains to O'Neill while preparing to enter back into hyperspace for the return trip to Orilla.

"What?" O'Neill asked in shock, before playing with the internal lighting on the bridge of the ship.

"What!" Jackson says nearly spitting his mouthful of coffee out.

"The ship which we are is called the Daniel Jackson." Teal'c replied mentally laughing at the look on Jackson's face.

"Well, ok, and I'm connected to the computers of the ship why?" O'Neill asked having stopped playing with the lights, and appeared as a hologram looking twenty years younger, now that Thor had taken the ship into hyperspace.

"We require access to the Ancient knowledge that is stored within your mind in order to develop a means to defeat the Replicators that are currently on course for the Asgard's new homeworld of Orilla. I am allowing you access to the ships logs' now." Thor explained opening up the most recent ships log's and translating them for O'Neill so that he could read them.

"WOW!" O'Neill said after a few minutes of reading the logs.

"Are you alright O'Neill?" Teal'c asked wondering if the Ancient's knowledge was beginning to affect him.

"I'm fine T. It's just that I'm kind of shocked that the world didn't end when news about the Goa'uld attack went public." O'Neill replied.

"Well the fleet we had in orbit coupled with the Archangel helped to calm the masses, still the middle-east playing up." Jackson sighed in understanding at what O'Neill was saying.

-{[]}-

As the five men entered the centre of the general assembly at the heart of the United Nations building in New York the hundreds of delegates ceased talking and watched as Hayes took his place at the speaker's podium. All noise ceased as the president steeled himself for the inevitable as camera's, radio microphones digital cameras and any other possible recording device was focused on him running and ready to send his words out live around the world. Henry Hayes stood at the centre of the dais, flanked by the other heads of state who made up the IOA council's core members.

"Ladies and Gentleman of the security council, delegates of the United Nations, people of the Earth. This is not an easy thing for me to get through so I humbly ask for everyone to remain silent until my speech has been completed. Approximately a decade ago an advanced piece of technology was uncovered deep within the archives of the weapons, research and development projects of what was formally known as DARPA. This technology allowed humans from this world to set foot on another planet for the first time since the end of the Apollo missions."

"In 1997 a team of soldiers and civilians attached to the United States air force used a hybrid of human and alien technology to leave the solar system and set foot upon a new and unknown planet within this spiral arm of the galaxy. In answer to the dangers that were found out there, a joint defence command was set up under the codename of 'Project Blue Book' was developed to protect the planet at large from attacks by our enemies. Under the command of lieutenant general Hammond of the USAF, he has led the under his command in uncovering new technologies from numerous sources."

"Inevitably, it seemed that the brave travellers from this world would meet a hostile race, one which was bent of dominating all humans as their slaves and forcing them to worship them as gods. This race of parasitic life forms are known as the Goa'uld, which information has already been released to the various news agencies' around the world, believed it is their destiny to rule over all forms of life within the universe. Many had already visited earth in the guise of the gods of many of the ancient religions."

"The war against these parasites has not been without costs however, amongst which were some of the best and brightest soldiers, marines, airman and navel personal from several nations. Doctor William Warner the chief medical officer for Project Blue Book, major Charles Adam Kawalsky USAF, the men and women of the USS Nimitz and her entire battle group are among the people who have died in the line of duty. Others have tried to destroy us merely because we choose to exist as our own race, rather than being slaves and bowing down to beings with delusions of god hood."

"With the knowledge that we have entered a dangerous time, the project was expanded and for the last few years and for this time has been responsible for saving the time and again. Within those travels the team of colonel Jonathan J. M. O'Neill, major Samantha Carter PhD, doctor Daniel Jackson and an allied extra-terrestrial commander by the name of Teal'c, were able to form alliances that have kept the Earth safe from those who would be willing to destroy us. However approximately three years ago a rouge member of the Goa'uld turned his attention towards us."

"Four days ago the cities of St Petersburg, Johannesburg, Sydney, part of the Antarctic ice shelf and the province of Hong Kong were destroyed by an orbital bombardment of plasma weapons. These weapons were part of a concentrated attack by a number of warships belonging to this Goa'uld named Anubis."

"At 08:32 eastern standard time, fifty of what were at the time unidentified warships entered the solar system inside the orbit of the moon heading directly for Earth. They were later identified by NORAD defence command as a fleet of Goa'uld Ha'tak class motherships on a direct course for earth. It was believed and then later confirmed that this fleet had been sent by this Anubis in order to subjugate us, and force us to worship him as god. Soon afterwards a hologram of Anubis was transmitted into the oval office of the white house in an effort to make us surrender without a fight. It was evident by this point that we were to submit to him and it was Anubis's decision that this was to happen in any way possible. This included force of arms and orbital bombardment. As a counter, several countries over the past two years have utilized the technologies discovered on earth and elsewhere in the galaxy to construct our own warships. Allied races from other galaxies was well as other parts of our own have assisted with the production of resources to increase our power projection away from this planet. As such seven warships and a number of fighter wings from around the world and an allied battlefortress and its attached fighter group participated in the battle against the encroaching war fleet."

"In the ensuing battle all fifty mother ships where either disabled or destroyed and over fifteen thousand fighter type craft where wiped out by our own fleet. In comparison two of our own capital ships were heavily damaged with fighter losses running into a great many aircraft and pilots killed. A temporary blinding of the detection systems on board the remaining ships allowed a number of capital ships to pass our defences resulting in the catastrophic damage to our world."

"In response to our requests for help, two of the non-human races that have helped us with the defence of our world in recent years have dispatched ships to assist with rescue efforts of those who were hurt in the attack. For the next few months ships of different types will be visible to the people of this planet. They are not here to invade or kill us. It is because of their help, that the radiation and dust clouds in the air are being removed. Already two of the volcanoes in the pacific and Indonesia areas have been sealed and their magma flows taped off to allow the area around each of the mountains to be repaired and reconstructed by the surviving inhabitants of the countries that these attacks have devastated. It will take time but I am convinced that above all that if we work together we will be able to recover from this tragedy."

-{[]}-

"We must revive him." Thor practically shouts worriedly for O'Neill's life as his vital signs begin to redline.

"Not yet!" O'Neill pleaded as his hologram disappeared as Thor activated the systems to remove the ancient knowledge from his mind and save his life. The alarms stopped and all was silent until O'Neill gave an echoing groan of pain. "Oh man, my head." He groaned as he sat up in the pod.

"Jack," Jackson said as he and Teal'c moved to help their friend back to his feet, "Take it easy. You've been through a lot in the last week."

"Huh, what are you on about?" O'Neill asked still slightly groggy and confused.

"What is the last thing that you remember?" Jackson asked carefully.

"Getting my head sucked by one of those damned ancient head suckers, and something about twins." O'Neill replied slightly dazed still.

"He's fine." Jackson says with a chuckle and sigh of relief.

"Teal'c what's with the hair?" O'Neill asks having noticed that his team mate was now sporting hair instead of his normal bald head.

"O'Neill," Thor said from the console that he was using to control the smaller science ship, "you should feel better momentarily and your memories should return shortly."

"Ok whatever," O'Neill replies still staring at the Jaffa's head, "What's with the hair Teal'c?"

Teal'c merely raised his eyebrow in his customary move for when he was annoyed at the question. "The situation has changed O'Neill."

O'Neill just shrugged and dropped the question, knowing that he would never get an answer out of him but figuring that he could ask Jackson or someone else at the base about it when they got back.

"The specifications for the device you have created remain in the computer." Thor said, "I believe that the ships synthesizers can create it." He added before there was a small flash of blueish white light as the device was created on a nearby pedestal.

O'Neill walked over to the device and looked it over for a few seconds before turning back to the others in the room. "Nice, so what is it?"

"Don't look at us, you built it." Jackson responded looking a little dumbfounded.

"No I didn't." O'Neill replied as he began to poke and prod the device like a little kid.

"Yes you did, using the downloaded ancient knowledge while you were linked to the ships computer." Jackson shot back as if he was explaining something to a child.

"It was doubtful that he would retain the knowledge of its design and its functions." Thor stated sounding a little disheartened but in understanding.

"Alright, let me have a look at it." O'Neill says as he crouches down to get a good look at the device, after a couple of seconds he stands up again. "Yeah… I got nothing."

-{[]}-

As the Jackson class science ship came out of hyperspace the main monitor on the ship suddenly activated with a comm-link showing the face of another Asgard.

"Greetings Thor." Said the other Asgard once he was sure that the connection was established.

"Greetings. Teal'c, doctor Jackson, O'Neill this is Penegal leader of the Asgard federation's high council." Thor said introducing the leader of the Asgard race. "Penegal I am relieved that you are still alive and still able to communicate."

"It may not last long." Penegal says as the screen starts to go snowy with static. "Were you able to procure a means of fighting the Replicators?"

"It's possible but it still requires some more research." Thor explained unsure if the device would work or not.

"You should know that those Replicators… infesting the colony are behaving in an organized fashion… any Replicators we have encountered before." Penegal said as the line cut out a little.

"Maybe there is a human form leader who has yet to revel itself to us."

"What about Sam?" Jackson asked with a touch of hope in his voice. "Have you detected any human life signs on the planet?"

"I am afraid not," Said Penegal sounding sad, "the only life-signs which we have detected are those of our own people fleeing from the Replicators."

"I'm willing to bet that she isn't dead." O'Neill said sounding very determined.

"Her life signs could be masked by the Replicators O'Neill." Teal'c suggested just before the screen flickered and went out.

"We have lost transmission." Thor said worried for his friend and the fate of his people, as he turns his attention back to the device that O'Neill has created. "This is most intriguing."

"Can you make it work?" Jackson asks looking at Thor as a small scanning beam passed back and forth over the device.

"To be honest I am unsure as to what the purpose of the device is." Thor says confused. "Are you certain that you don't know what it is supposed to do O'Neill?"

"I don't know," O'Neill said shrugging, "and to be honest do you really think that I'd just standby when Carter or anyone on this team is captured about it? I have no idea what it is, it could be an Ancient hot dog maker for all I know." He finished as the viewscreen rematerialized.

"Thor, this is commander Hogun of the Valhalla. We have lost contact with the colony on the surface." The Asgard on the screen said, interrupting the argument between Jackson and O'Neill before it could start once more.

"Hogun it is good to see you old friend, comm-links have been terminated on the surface. What have you to report?" Thor asked of his friend, subordinate and troublemaking partner in crime in their youth.

"We have detected what appears to be the remains of a human-form replicator floating in the remains of the debris from the destroyed replicator ship. Somehow it must have survived the explosion of its vessel and has since become inactive." Hogun said, "I am transmitting its location to you now, use caution old friend we as a race cannot afford to lose you and Sif would kick my rass if you were injured now that we might be on the verge of victory over this scourge."

"I will. Daniel Jackson out." Thor said nodding in understanding at the meaning behind the warning about Sif and her temper before closing the comm-link blushing, unbeknownst to the humans on the ship.

"Erm Thor buddy, what are you doing?" O'Neill asks as Thor walks over to another console across the bridge.

"I am going to transport it on board." Thor stated calmly. "Though it is dangerous we must have access to it in order to access the network that the Replicators share to gain intelligence on the human-form which is leading the attack." He explains as a flash of blueish white light appears in front of Thor, revealing his old battle-armour and pistol from his youth, before a second one deposits the frozen form of the human-form replicator in a nearby pod.

"Anyone recognize him?" Jackson asks aiming his new Zentron FN-P117 assault rifle at the pod.

"Nope." O'Neill responds as Teal'c hands him a P-90, since O'Neill didn't like the Zentradi weapon, and Thor slips his armour on. "Is it dead?" He asks as he taps the top of the glass with the muzzle of his personal defence weapon.

"Not entirely." Thor says in a joking tone which makes O'Neill jump back slightly. "As I stated the Replicators are linked through an advanced subspace communications network we can use this network to gain access through multiple points of ingress increasing our chances of finding their leader."

"And if it wakes up, is that pod going to hold it?" O'Neill asked the question that the others were all thinking.

"… It is highly unlikely." Thor admitted as the last piece of his armour was placed on around his small and fragile frame after a moment of thought and manipulating the controls for the pod to activate its containment field. "Though this should increase the chances of us surviving in the event that it reactivates. I have access to the network." He stated checking the charge on his hard-light energy pistol as a holo-screen appeared over the pod filled with static. "I am searching for any references to humans or human-forms now."

It took a few minutes of looking at nothing but the matrix-style static which was the link the Replicators data network, during which O'Neill had asked Thor about his armour and was told that he had not worn it since he was a mere foot hermaour millennia ago, before a woman being held against a wall made up of Replicator blocks appeared through the jumble.

"Sam." O'Neill muttered as he saw the image on the screen. "Can you find her?"

"She is within a small structure on the planet's surface around a hundred kilometres from the outskirts of the colony near the impact site of an asteroid that is rich in neutronium." Thor replied having scanned the area around the structure. Suddenly the screen above the pod flickered and died as the lights in the room dimmed and the field around the containment chamber pulsed several times before snapping off.

"Oh Crap!" O'Neill shouted in panic as he took aim at the body of the Replicator still in the pod.

"The Replicator appears to be reactivating and the containment field has failed. I cannot reactivate it." Thor said trying to reactivate the field, while hoping that his old hard-light pistol would work on the thing like it did against the Haaken all those millennia ago.

Suddenly the damage to the replicator was repaired and its eyes snapped open. It took a few seconds to register its surroundings before staring at all four of them with a glare.

"Beam it out NOW!" O'Neill shouted as he and the others all took aim at the pod, even Thor with his pistol.

"Activating transporter now." Thor said turning to the controls and bathing the pod in a blueish white light, however the Replicator failed to be transported off the ship and thrust its hand through the transparent Trinium as if it was paper and climbed out. A heartbeat later Thor and the three members of SG1 opened fire riddling the Replicator with weapons fire, they stopped shooting a few seconds later and watched in horror as it repaired its self, before charging at O'Neill.

"Thor buddy, a little help!" O'Neill said a little worried and pulling his new Luna titanium combat blade, but before the Replicator could reach him Teal'c tackled it and attempted to fight it in hand-to-hand. The Replicator however was faster and delivered a crippling liver punch to the Jaffa warrior which sent him flying across the bridge like a rag doll.

As Teal'c landed Jackson and Thor opened fire, sending a full clip's of ammunition into the droid in an attempt to slow it down while somebody came up with a plan.

O'Neill seeing the device that he had created earlier makes a dive for it and slides his arm into the opening on it and grasps the handle inside. Instantly the function of the device is imprinted into his mind as he aims the cross-shaped disruption wave generator at the Replicator before thinking 'Fire' and watching as an energy wave washes over the it leaving nothing more than a pile of neutronium based dust.

"What just happened?" Asked Jackson replacing his magazine in his 117 and kneeling down to check on Teal'. "Jack?"

"I figured out what it does." O'Neill sheepishly answers while cradling his new space gun.

"It seems that the device has permanently disrupted the inter-molecular bonds of the nanites cells, rendering them totally inert." Thor said shocked, as he placed his hard-light pistol on to its holster where SG1 just stared at it since it was the first sidearm they had seen any of the Asgard fire, in fact it was the first weapon that they had seen used by them other than their ship based plasma and ion cannons.

"Can you adapt it into a weapon that will affect the plant as a whole?" Jackson asked as Teal'c shook his head while standing and taking aim at the Replicator's mass making sure that it wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.

"I believe so." Thor said. "If I can modify the ships defensive shield matrix to project an energy wave similar to that of the weapon, now that I know what it does, it should work." Thor mused as he adjusted the controls to begin altering the frequency and function of the shield matrix for his ship.

"Great in the mean time we'll head down to the surface and rescue our resident scientist and damsel in distress." O'Neill said as Jackson rolled his eyes and Teal'c merely raised his eyebrow.

"I am unable to transport you directly inside the Replicators structure." Thor stated laughing at the thought of major Carters reaction when she or if she ever found out about that remark. "They have devised a countermeasure to prevent that, but I can get you within one hundred meters."

"Alright, oh one other thing before we go Thor." O'Neill said as the team stood together all geared up with fresh ammo and other combat supplies. "If you that that weapon will end the nightmare of the Replicators once and for all, then do it even if we're still within the structure, ok buddy."

Thor thought about what he was being asked to do by his first friend from outside the Asgard race since the Alteran's had left this area of the universe. "I understand O'Neill." He said nodding in acceptance.

"Well in that case, energise." O'Neill quipped and Jackson groaned at the phrase as SG1 was surrounded in the typical blueish white light of the Asgard transporter system.

-{[]}-

"Yeah who's your daddy!" O'Neill shouted as he blasted away at the hoards' of spider type replicators that were attempting to kill the three men having been attracted by the energy of their beam in.

"SAM!" Jackson shouted over the sound of the gun fire from him and Teal'c.

"Major Carter?" Teal'c said shoving the barrel of the M45D tactical shotgun, that he had asked Thor to make based off of his favourite Tau'ri video game 'Halo', into a rather large techno-bug.

"Stop!" Shouted a voice that the three men knew well, while pausing in their assault and turned to see Fifth standing on the ridge line just behind them. "If you harm me or any more of my of brethren, I assure you that major Carter will die instantly." He said calmly as several larger beetle techno-bugs appeared behind Fifth.

The three men all shared a with one another, before shrugging as they resumed their blasting of the bugs as O'Neill vaporised Fifth with a shot from his new anti-replicator disruptor space gun.

"This way!" Teal'c called as he lead the way across the field which was fast filling up with destroyed replicator blocks and dust from human-form Replicators.

"SG1 this is Thor," The Asgard warrior said over the squad's radio, "I have the fleet in position around the planet and have charged the shields to deliver the pulse around the whole planet on your command." The three stopped in their dash across the field and looked at each other once more.

After a few seconds of silent debate between the three men O'Neill gives Thor the green light. "Do it!"

"Understood. Firing now." A few seconds later a massive purple energy wave washed over them and destroyed the remaining Replicator spider types, the structure and a large spider type ship that was standing nearby. "The weapon has discharged and all of the remaining Replicators have been neutralised."

"And what about Sam?" Jackson asked with a worried tone in his voice for the woman that he loved like a sister.

"I have a lock on a human life sign where the structure was once standing."

"Carter!" O'Neill shouted as he took off at a run towards where the structure had been, after a few seconds Jackson and Teal'c began chasing after him.

"Sam!" Jackson shouted as he began to search through the massive piles of deactivated Replicator blocks.

"Over here!" Teal'c said a short distance from the other two.

"Carter." O'Neill said as he scrambled across the pile of blocks to where Teal'c was and caught sight of her lying there unconscious. "Come on wake up."

Carter groaned slightly before her eyes slowly opened and focused on the man who was now cradling her head. "Jack?"

"Excuse me?" O'Neill asked surprised at her casual use of his name.

"What! Oh… I mean sorry sir." Carter said blushing at what she had just done in front of her friends, not to mention the man she felt more than regulations allowed her to.

"Thor should take a look at you." Jackson said ignoring her shocked expression and the blush on her face.

"Indeed." Teal'c agreed.

"Thor do you have a lock on us?" O'Neill asked speaking into his radio still cradling Carters head.

"Affirmative O'Neill."

"Then beam us up Scotty." O'Neill quipped making both Jackson and Carter groan at the bad Star Trek reference as they disappeared in a blueish white light, as another smaller Asgard cruiser moved into begin removing the replicator blocks from the clearing.

-{[]}-

Rumblings began to echo throughout the general assembly of the United Nations building as the delegates talked among themselves, the chairman of the proceedings slammed a gavel down several times as the microphones around his chair amplified the sound to thunderous proportions, before motioning for Hayes to continue.

"Four the last two years the American government has disclosed the existence of project Blue Book and the alliances to the nations of Russia, China, Japan, France and the United Kingdom, as the most powerful countries in the world. Their assistance as deemed necessary in the view that we were outnumbered, out gunned and stretched thin with access to available resources, however thanks to those countries and a number of critical developments and construction projects were continued leading to the successful repelling of Anubis' attack."

"Any and all aid will be used to help those that are still within the impact zones. Already more than one hundred thousand men and women from the allied nations have begun the task of aiding the survivors. Supplies of all types are moving from the storehouses within those same countries thanks to the orbiting warships of the aforementioned nations and their extra-terrestrial allies."

"However I must remind all that this is merely the first shot of this war, a war which we did not start but will in turn strike back with every means at our disposal. We are not warmongers nor are we willing to take this without revenge, in agreement with my esteemed colleagues of the United Kingdom and her Commonwealth, the Russian Federation, the Republic of France, the Democratic Peoples' Republic of China and the Sovereign State of Japan, hereby declare war on the System Lords of the Goa'uld empire."

"This may be a long and bloody war. We will take losses and we will lose men and women whom had signed on for the defence of the planet against its foes, but I will be damned if we allow the memories of those who were murdered by this unprovoked attack upon our world to go unavenged, or forgotten. In the fullness of time we will fight back, but until that time all we can do is prepare ourselves for this war and its aftermath."

"Ladies and gentleman of the planet Earth, thank-you."

Instantly the delegates began to rumble as the full effect of Hayes words began to sink in, several countries did little due to their foreknowledge of what was happening during this meeting. Shouts from a number of blocks began to rain upon the leaders, claims of conspiracy and outright lying to the world flew back and forth between the two sides, even a few demands that everything involved with this defence project be handed over to all of the nations of the world. The noise became extreme as the shouts became roars, as dozens if not hundreds of representatives screamed about the 'lies' that the American's and the allies had made up about this non-existent extra-terrestrial threat.

A familiar flash of blueish white light disrupted the increasing agitated crowd of politicians, when it faded two figures stood on the dais exactly where Hayes had stood on before finishing his speech. One of the two beings appeared to be human, and in fact was, but the other was very different, the room was so silent that you could hear the sound of the air conditioning as the delegates watched in open mouthed shock.

"I will never get used to that." The British ambassador whispered to Blair, "Colonel, supreme commander, welcome back."

"Thank-you mister Baker." Thor said to the man he had met when the British, French, Chinese and Japanese had been informed about the stargate and its associated programs a few years earlier. Barker had gotten over his shock at meeting the first small Asgard commander relatively fast leading to a number of talks about their cultures and the fact that a number of the Norseman had flourished after settling throughout Europe.

"Sorry for just beaming in like this, but we thought that you, might like to hear some of this from those of us who have been there on the exploration missions. No offence meant Mr president." O'Neill said into the microphone, having recently returned from the Asgard's new homeworld and beamed in from the SGC after stopping off there long enough to pick up his dress blues. "My name is colonel O'Neill of the United States Air Force, commander of the primary exploration team on 'Project Blue Book' with me here is Supreme Commander Thor, commander of the Asgard fleet."

"Shortly after the alien technologies which have allowed us to travel off world, I took a team of ten from Earth to the planet Abydos. During our first mission we discovered a race of humans originally transplanted from Earth, or more precisely from the Egyptian empires of between five and ten thousand years ago. These humans were kept as slaves for the mines that ere on the planet by a member of the parasitic race known as the Goa'uld that went by the name of Ra. Most of the first team which we took off-world were killed by this beings guards, those of us who survived where able to aid the locals in claiming their freedom after thousands of years of servitude by destroying Ra's vessel with him aboard."

"During the past decade we have fought off several attacks by the Goa'uld, artificial intelligences, energy creatures and even other human cultures that have wanted nothing more than to make us slaves or to simply destroy us for who we are for their own reasons, every man and women who died in the defence of this world has done so in the knowledge that they were keeping the wolves from the door for at least another day. I've seen too many people die over the years to allow any megalomania to simple walk in and takeover because they believe that it is their 'divine right' to rule over us. While it is true that we have made enemies that are powerful enough to destroy us in a blink of an eye, we have also made allies that can do the same to our enemies. One of those allies is a race familiar to anyone who knows the myths and conspiracy theories regarding the 1947 weather balloon crash outside of Roswell, New Mexico. I present to the assembled nations of the United Nations, Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard Federation's fleet."

The silence became palpable as the very slight form of the Asgard approached the dais while his command chair lifted up a small amount to interface with the more primitive radio microphones used to communicate by the humans of the Tau'ri. "Greetings to you all from the high council of the Asgard federation. In order to explain who and what we are it would be prudent to inform you all of the history of the galaxies which we involve ourselves with. Many thousands of years ago the Asgard where a member of an alliance of four races, much like this assembly, Asgard, the Nox, the Furling's and the Alteran's also known as the Ancients. As each of our races fell or simply became introvert the alliance was dissolved until we were all that was left of the older races."

"It was at this time that the last few Alteran's that were capable of doing so disappeared from this space and evolved into another form. Their few surviving brethren had decided merely to remain on Earth and interbreed with the new race that was beginning to take form on the oldest of their planets. This race was rediscovered by the Asgard with the arrival of Jonathan O'Neill to our homeworld several years ago."

"With the help of your people we have been able to defend not only this galaxy but my own from races that would make slaves or hosts of those that they saw as being inferior. We were unable to cease the rise of the Goa'uld Empire as they prayed in the ancient peoples of the Earth. It is indeed fortunate for both our races that our respective peoples managed to find each other at the very time we needed each other. It is the human drive, willingness for self-sacrifice and pure stubbornness which has allowed your people to thrive within the interstellar community, and for these reasons many species, including my own, thank the people of Earth for everything that they have endured thus far."

"In return for the assistance that the soldiers of your world have given us, the Asgard high council has authorized the continued presence of our ships within your system to protect the people of Earth against any possible intrusion by the enemies of our respective races. Additionally, we have already begun the long task of removing the ash, dust and other pollution from the impact sights, and your own nuclear weapons testing, to allow for those areas which were destroyed to be reclaimed."

"We cannot give you back that which you have lost but we can assist you in your war against the Goa'uld that have attacked this planet and its innocent population. I have been further authorized by the entire high council of the Asgard Federation to annual the protected planets treaty between the people of earth and the Goa'uld Empire, on the grounds of preventing to enact clause 2198 of the treaty in which you will stop any and all members of the Goa'uld from launching an attack on any of the worlds in the treaty. This treaty will be replaced with a mutual defence treaty between our respective powers."

"While the Asgard as a race cannot at this time join the humans of Earth in declaring war upon those that have attacked your world we can at least inform you that you are not alone in this universe we will never allow you to believe otherwise, we owe you much that we may not repay but we will not leave you to go this alone. Thank-you for listening."

The shock that the human race had been in regular contact with an extra-terrestrial race was still percolating through the minds of many of the UN, reporters and security forces, that nobody really noticed when O'Neill, the heads of state for the IOA core members and Thor all disappeared in flash of blueish white light.

A few seconds later the group reappeared on of the O'Neill class ship Teal'c, in its aft observation lounge still in orbit, with the rest of the fleet.

"Well that went well." Hayes said. "Commander Thor, I thank-you for your help down there. I'm not sure what would have happened had we been unable to keep the delegates calm."

"Understandable caution, Mr president. I do fear however that the lack of disclosure regarding the stargate may be problematic in the future. Your speech was impressive but I don't believe that you will be able to keep the truth behind closed for much longer."

"Yeah I know, but until we can figure out how to tell the world about the gate, its best to keep it under wraps. At least now we don't have to hide quiet so much. Gentlemen it was kind of you to take the time to assist me with this today, let's just hope that it hasn't permanently damaged our chances of staying in power. We'll begin the full scale transfer to your respective countries of both personnel and resources to refit your shipyards to build Minerva, Nelson, Drake, Prometheus upgrades and Star Wolves and Starmax's."

Zemin spoke up. "Then you are going to remove the block from the rightful supply of equipment and personnel? Your armed forces will be unhappy with that Henry, especially as technically we are still a hostile power to the United States. This is something that will not change overnight even with the disclosure of our alliance against the Goa'uld."

"The problem gentlemen will be that China, as a country is considered hostile by all the other members of this alliance," Blair said, "we included. I don't see any of our countries allowing large amounts of critical or exotic resources to arm a hostile culture. No offense intended, Jiang."

"None taken Tony, however my people will demand that we be given access to all data and materials needed. This is something that I will not be able to stave off for very long."

"I've managed to get the chiefs of staff to budge on a certain amount of the necessary supplies." Hayes put in. "But so far barely enough to expand to a large scale production of Star Wolf fighters. Simply put, they don't trust you, the Russians or the Zentradi that much, even with your assistance with the alliance."

"So that is why they 'offered' us the Korolev as a bargaining chip, so we wouldn't think much on their holding back the necessary resources to build our own ships." Laughed Putin. "Your staff is crafty, Henry but my cabinet will also be unhappy when they hear of this. Your people have already dragged out the dissemination of the information that we should have gotten long ago." Putin warned.

"Well, I hope we can settle this," Blair piped up, hoping to prevent an argument between the two men, "We'll need all the help we can get to fight the Goa'uld. It's time we settled the problems between our countries and began a real defence of this world, after all the 'Cold War' ended in the eighties."

"I know, I know. It's going to take time to get the military to listen to the fact that we're goanna need help to get any kind of joint military command structure in place." Hayes said sounding dejected. "I'll do what I can gents, but for now we'll have to stick with what we've got, again thank-you all for coming it was greatly appreciated."

"Then I believe that's our cue to return to whatever government may still be in power," Zemin said jokingly. "God knows what this will do to any of your parties. Good luck gentlemen I have a feeling that we may need it. Commander Thor it was a pleasure to finally meet you in person, are ambassador the UN speaks highly of you"

"Thank-you Mr prime minister, I enjoyed my conversations with yours and the British ambassadors. I will now return you all to your countries of residence." Thor said as he watched as the human contingent disappeared from his ship leaving him to his thoughts. "Bridge this is commander Thor, I require a direct link to the High Council immediately."

"Right away commander."

-{[]}-

"Ok that's it, the shits hit the fan!" Hammond said pinching the bridge of his nose. "Communications give me an all stations channel." He ordered and waited, after a few seconds the comm-officer nodded to Hammond letting him know that the channel was open. "All forces, all stations this is the Prometheus, as you are no doubt aware by now the world at large knows of us and what we are capable of. As of now I am authorised to enact 'Disclosure plan Alpha one', all stations are to go into lockdown until informed otherwise. The civilians know we're up here and will be looking for any proof of any dealings with alien technology, increase all patrols along the perimeters and inform the SGC of any incursions. Good luck people, Prometheus out."

"Sir, message from the Archangel. It's commodore Hudson sir." The communications officer said looking rightly confused. "He's recommending that the rotational cycle commence. All ships are to begin refit and rearmament in daily cycles. We're first."

"Acknowledge the signal and inform the rest of the fleet that we are heading for the Nevada yards. Looks like the folks are in for an in for an eye-full when we land this time."

"Aye sir"

"Advise the SGC that I have transferred the flag at this time to the Daedalus, alright everyone else stay at your positions. Patch me through to the Archangel."

"The Archangel is answering sir, commodore Hudson on the line."

"Commodore, this is Hammond, the public is in the know. Please stand-by for landing instructions."

"Copy that general, somehow I don't think people would like it if a massive space dock was moved into orbit." Joked Hudson. "Somewhere not to public but near the water would be nice since the Archangel is a big lady." Hudson said putting extra strength on the word big, given that the Archangel came in at 15,000 meters in length and a touch over 700 meters wide.

"Understood, I for one don't want to piss off anyone else if we can help it. We'll figure somewhere for you to land within allied areas, lord knows where but we'll sort something out."

"How I wish that your Earth had a Macross scale dry-dock dirtside." Joked Dvorak in the background causing Hudson, Hammond and the bridge crews to laugh slightly. "Well just hang around up here and await further instructions."

"Thank-you Prometheus out." The channel closed and the technician frowned as a high pitched radio squeal interrupted the channels for a moment, logging the anomaly the officer continued to monitor the myriad of both radio and subspace channels which his station were assigned. "Sorry sir, some kind of feedback from the connection."

"Understood, all hands this is Hammond report to landing stations immediately. Helm begin landing sequence."

"Landing sequence aye, adjusting shields to re-entry levels, weapons are secured. All systems show green across the board." Said major Grant from the helm.

"Take us in."

Dropping from orbit the Prometheus plunged into the atmosphere, its shields beginning to glow under the strain as the pressure and heat of re-entry built up. Unlike the other times that they had been required to return to its berth in the docks at Area 51 there was no need to keep their presence a secret from by standers, so anybody that was looking into the night sky of the US would see a flaming streak heading directly for the surface.

The approach to the Nevada shipyards was as quiet and uninterrupted as normal, as the base came into view the roads around the base seemed to be different, with signs of life with tens of hundreds of people packing them. Members of the public from the nearby towns had flocked to the area which surrounded Area 51 and the Nevada dry-docks. Somehow the information about the SGC and its associated bases had become common knowledge, and as they closed they could see that the thin chain-link fence and guard patrols had been replaced.

There was hundreds of armed troops, machine-gun nests even artillery and armoured units deployed all around the base's perimeter. Many looked up in the night sky as the forward landing lights of the Prometheus began to light up the area due to her downward approach, the view changed slightly as the orientation of the landing path smoothed out. The public began to scream and cheer as the Prometheus closed with the ground, arm and banners waved at the starship but the shouts and praise of the majority of the crowd was sadly inaudible to the crew.

"It's nice to see that we're appreciated once in a while." Harriman smirked from the forward science station.

"Don't get to cocky chief this could still go downhill fast." Hammond cautioned in a happy tone of voice.

"Yes sir." The SGC veteran replied.

A large number of protesters and hoodlums that had mixed in with the supporters which where milling around closer to the fences with a number of them shouting and swearing at the military personnel. As the bridge crew watched some of the more dangerous mobs began to pelt the guards and the fence in an attempt to break through into the guarded base compound. Bottles, rocks and even a few homemade Molotov cocktails smashed into the ground in front of the security forces.

There was no response from the military police units, and until the attackers began to break the fences or attempt to physically force their way into the base, their orders were to hold their positions. However a number of the troops had loaded their weapons with In'tar rounds or grabbed a Zat'nik'tel in place of their normal side arms, just in case a riot broke out and it had to be dealt with.

Within the Prometheus herself an alarm sounded as the scanners picked up an incoming weapon a second before a single anti-air missile slammed into the currently unshielded hull directly onto the mid-ship anti-gravity drives. The Prometheus didn't even shudder from the impact to the Naquadah/ Trinium composite laminated armour, which was rated to withstand blasts from plasma weapons and rail-gun rounds, so the single man portable anti-air weapon did nothing but scratch the paint on the advanced ship.

"Major?" Hammond asked.

"Hit from a single anti-air missile sir. It impacted on the portside anti-gravity thrusters, no appreciable damage caused, however the other generators are adjusting to compensate for the damage." Grant reported with a visible scowl that someone would take a cheap pot shot at her ship.

"How did it get through the shields?" Asked Ronson his left arm in a cast from a broken forearm caused during the battle.

"Shields were off-line for a few seconds to restart after re-entry, we lost cohesion if the fields from the number four generator over Nebraska. The shooter got lucky sir, they got the shot in before the system had reset, sir."

"Track the launcher, I want to know where that bastard is." Ronson ordered darkly before Hammond had a chance to issue the order himself.

"Aye sir." Grant said as she tasked the ships sensors to scan the crowds on all sides attempting to find and track the position of their armature attacker, traces of the propellant used by the STINGER missile where easily traced by the Asgard/ Zentron hybrid sensors on the Prometheus. Seconds later several people within the area of the attacker were treated to the sight of a small SUV and its passengers disappearing in a flash of bluish white light.

Both of the passengers of the SUV were shocked to find that they had been transported to within the very ship that they had just fired on, and surrounding them on all sides were some very angry looking marines and crew members and even a few Humvee looking Laser Rapid Assault Trackers all point rifles, machine guns or heavy looking wrenches at them, with only a light blue force-shield separating them from one another.

"Got them sir." Grant said after the completing the scans and beaming the attackers on board. "They've been transported to the main forward cargo hatch, force fields are operational on all sides these two are going nowhere. Their weapons have been removed from their SUV and placed in the main armoury."

"Idiots, both of them. Begin docking sequence take us in major." Hammond said sounding displeased.

"Aye sir, all sections are go for docking."

Several miles away from the watching crowds, two massive doors opened in the sand of the dry lake bed of the Nevada desert. Cutting its forward thrusters the Prometheus came to stop and hover over its underground docking facility and gently lowered into the docking bay below before cutting power as automated docking latches locked on and began to power the systems of the ship.

"Ship is down, all engines are off-line, systems are set to station keeping and docking clamps are secure." Grant said as she turned to face both Hammond and Ronson. "Bay is secure sirs. All docking and access gantries are moving into position now."

"Thank-you major, now let's go see what these jokers have to say for themselves." Hammond said darkly.

* * *

**Authors Notes:**

So I've taken a little longer on this one than I had planned, as I have had a lot of personal problems on my plate, and I wanted to make sure that I did a decent 'disclosure' chapter that wasn't just a simple here's the truth and if you don't like sorry sort of thing as well as base it more in the real world so I had to spend a little bit of time researching the different leaders other than Hayes who had been in power back in the early 2000's for the core members of the IOA.

I also decided that the design of the Prometheus as the to make it something that was more along the lines of the 304's in terms of fire power from the end of Atlantis, but more along the lines of an Izumo class battleship from Gundam Seed, now I know that this is a Robotech centred story but as most of the ships in the Robotech/ Macross universe are designed as carriers first battleships second, I've lent some of the more modern Gundam ships for the story.

Now for those of you know the story line of stargate, you will remember that in the episode 'Hero's part 2' they killed off doctor Fraiser, and though she was only a recurring character, I liked her and could see her and Daniel getting together as a couple, so I haven't killed her off as she was saved from a direct hit due to a drop shield like the ones used in Halo, while she worked on saving the downed solider.

Also I'm taking suggestions for names of ships for the Earth fleet, but I will not be accepting, Galactica, Enterprise, Excelsior, Defiant, Andromeda or Victory as they are in the works for the later books.


	14. Chapter 13: Road to Atlantis

**Chapter 13: Road to Atlantis**

"You've got to be kidding me?" President Hayes said, almost screaming down the phone to doctor Weir in the commanding officers office at the SGC.

"I'm not sir." Weir confirmed wincing slightly from the Presidents near shout. "The Goa'uld are requesting permission to send a delegation to negotiate a treaty of sorts with us. The request came in just a few moments ago."

"Not a chance in hell!" Hayes responded venomously. "Those snake-heads let Anubis damn near blast us back to the stone-age, and if it hadn't been for the fleet, the Archangel and SG1's eleventh hour save we would be no better than hunter gather's again right now trying to survive. Tell them to go screw themselves doctor."

"Mr. President I believe that we should at least be willing to hear what they have to say, if only to find out exactly what it is that they want and they are offering in return. It's at best worth a shot." Weir said hoping that she had convinced the man that it was worth the risk.

"With both barrels." Hayes said, before calming down. "Ok… fine, but doctor if they so much as look the wrong way I want them gone. Understood?" He said calmly.

"Completely crystal clear sir." Weir responded with a nod, although Hayes couldn't see it on the other end of the phone line.

"Good. Keep me posted." Hayes concluded before hanging up the phone at his end.

"Well it could be worse I guess." Weir sighed heavily.

"Just another day in the SGC." Jackson shrugged moving to leave general Hammond's old office before being beamed out by Thor.

-{[]}-

"Chevron seven locked." Lieutenant Simmons says from the control room as the gate activates behind the closed iris. "Receiving a transmission… it's the Goa'uld."

"Here goes nothing…" Weir muttered under her breath, "let them through." She ordered as the iris quickly retracted while a short message was sent through the letting the team know that they were safe to let Goa'uld know that it was safe to proceed. A second later three men and a woman stepped through the gate escorted by SG9. "Welcome to Earth. I doctor Elizabeth …" Started Weir.

"We are not interested in your name." States Camulus dismissively as his eyes glow.

"Really?" Weir said sarcastically, "I generally find that it tends to make things go a lot more smoothly if people all know ones another's name." She says as the system lords move down from the deactivated stargate.

"We would prefer to just present our offer so that we can spend as little time on this miserable little rock as possible." Amaterasu, the only female Goa'uld in the group, says as Weir looks at Reynolds who just smiles knowingly.

"Well shall we," Weir says as she indicates the way to the conference room above the embarkation room. A few seconds later the group is seated around the conference table in the briefing room with the Goa'uld's sitting at one end and Weir and Reynolds around the other with two armed marines standing by the entrance, while Yu's first prime Osha, stood near his master.

"Your unexpected victory and defeat of Anubis has created an unstable situation among the system lords." Amaterasu said once everyone was seated around the table, in the typical double flanged voice of a Goa'uld. "In order to avoid open war it was decided to divide up his territories and forces equally."

"How civilised of you." Reynolds snarled having faced off against multiple Goa'uld and even killed a few of them himself, but the sarcasm was lost on the three Goa'uld.

"Yes. Unfortunately one among us has broken this agreement and started to attack the rest of us." She continued as if she had not been interrupted.

"Let me take a wild guess," Reynolds said jokingly, "it was Ba'al right? He always seemed like the most level headed of the all of you."

"He was able to locate the planet on which Anubis had created his Kull warriors." Camulus explained calmly.

"He gained access to Tartarus?" Reynold's asked shocked, having heard through the SGC grape vine how much of a fortress that planet was.

"Yes, he not only managed to capture the fortress but has also reprogramed the warriors their and elsewhere to serve him." Amaterasu practically spat with her anger causing her eyes to flash. "In battle these warriors are far superior to that of the Jaffa, and given enough time he will be able to conquer the galaxy. If that was to happen no one, not even the Tau'ri, would be safe from his forces."

"While this is all very enlightening I fail to see how or why we should care?" Weir said trying not to sound to shocked that earth was once again in the cross hairs of a Goa'uld. "We have a way to destroy those drone troops, and if we managed to destroy the fleet that Anubis sent several days ago, a fleet of seventy Ha'tak class, two hundred Al'kesh and the attached glider wings plus Anubis' flagship, I can't see his former lackey doing any better."

Yu quickly gestured for his first prime to come closer so that he could talk without the other hearing him. "My master wishes to say, it is well known that the Tau'ri possess a powerful new weapon, something which is far beyond your current level of technical knowledge." Oshu said carefully so not as to anger his master.

"Actually it's not that far out of our regular tech level these days." Weir counted without giving too much away, "In fact we've had access to the technology that is on par with that of the gate-builders now for almost a Terran solar year now, and have already used it to defeat Anubis, and we destroyed half of his fleet before we used the weapon that you just mentioned just to destroy the remaining ships including his dreadnought class flagship."

"WHAT!" Amaterasu shouted, "Where did you get such technology?"

"That's for us to know and for you never too, like I said before, Ba'al or anyone else amongst you wouldn't last very long in a fight with us." Weir counted smoothly shocking the Goa'uld delegation, as they tried to come to terms with what they had just heard.

"Still with the weaponry at your command you could prevent Ba'al from becoming a threat to the rest of the galaxy, if Ba'al manages to defeat us, as the combined might of the system lords, how long do you think it would be before he turns his attention to you?" Camulus said calmly but threateningly towards the SGC members.

"Perhaps, however there are other worlds within this galaxy that are without the protection of the advanced defensive systems which your world now processes." Amaterasu said with an air of knowing arrogance.

Reynolds narrowed his eyes, praying that these snake-heads weren't on about what he was thinking. "What are you getting at?"

"We couldn't help but notice that the Asgard did not come to your aid when Anubis was attacking your planet, in fact we have heard very little from them for some time now." Amaterasu explained watching the pair at the other end of the table.

Reynolds chuckled at that, while Weir merely smiled. "Funny that you would mention that since we talk to them all the time. In fact SG1 and one of our ships are at their homeworld right now discussing the Protected Planets Treaty and the possibility of a technological and cultural exchange."

"WHAT! That is an outrage and a clear violation of the treaty!" Camulus shouted as he sprang to his feet in anger.

"So was allowing Anubis to attack earth with a number of different means over the last few years." Reynolds shot back, waving the guards to stand down. "Since Anubis was a Goa'uld we asked the Asgard to remain on standby and not to interfere with our defence plans. That way it would be you who broke the treaty and it would allow the Asgard to compensate us with some of their older technology."

"We also requested that they protect the other planets which fall under the treaty, just in case some of you decided to attack them while we were dealing with Anubis." Weir explained catching on to what Reynolds was doing.

"Not that it matters," Amaterasu said trying to keep the meeting on track, and away from the level of technology that the Tau'ri now had in their possession. "Ba'al has formed the conclusion that the Asgard are no longer able to or willing to enforce their obligations with regards to the treaty.

"Perhaps a short recess is in order." Suggested Weir, having only read about a third of the files regarding the SGC's history in its first few years.

"Agreed." Camulus said as Yu's first prime picked up the chair that Camulus had knocked over as he stood up, before sitting back down.

"Exactly how many planets are covered by this treaty?" Weir asked as she preached edge of her desk.

"I think that doctor Jackson told me once it was around twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven." Reynolds said closing the door to her office. "I'm certain that he said that they range from a population of a few hundred thousand to half a billion or so."

"So what good is the treaty if the Asgard aren't around to enforce it?" Weir asked in total disbelief at the situation.

"At one time they were, but thanks to the replicators, their forces are getting stretched rather thin. Them and us have really just been trading on the treat, kind of like poker, even when you don't have a winning hand you still bluff trying to win."

"Great," Weir said in frustration as she pinched the bridge of her nose, "and Ba'al is about to call it for Earth and the others. I know we defend Earth but what about the other worlds?"

"I have no idea ma'am." Reynolds said shaking his head before glancing over his shoulder at the Goa'uld still sat around the briefing room table visible through the sound proof glass which had star map printed on it. The pair thought about it for a few moments before Weir had an idea.

"I've got an idea but I'm not sure that commodore Hudson or the President are going to like it."

"What would that be ma'am?"

"Earth is about to make one hell of a commitment." Weir said sighing as she stood back up and gestured for Reynolds to do the same and the pair retake their seats at the briefing room table. "While we thank-you for your intelligence on what Ba'al is up to, we won't interfere in what is clearly an internal matter for the Goa'uld." Weir said once she was sure that the Goa'uld where listening to her, "if Ba'al breaks the treaty then he will suffer the consequences, that's all there is to it."

"Unfortunately we do not share your faith in the Asgard, we must stop Ba'al before that happens." Yu said as he slammed his fist onto the table in anger.

"The Asgard won't be the ones upholding the treaty we will." Weir declared with her best poker face and voice.

"You!" Amaterasu asked as her eyes went wide due to her surprise.

"Yes us." Weir confirmed as Reynold's gave her a questioning glance. "We will be the ones whom are enforcing the treaty from now on, so if Ba'al is dumb enough to break it, well you've seen what our four man SG teams can do."

"You don't have the forces to do that." Sneered Amaterasu.

"That's where you're wrong." Reynolds said, "An SG team is designed to be a fast moving scout unit, add in our fleet assets and well our forces are more than enough to do just that."

"We know that the Tau'ri have the ability to build space going warships, however without a viably hyperspace technology you cannot possibly reach the other planets which are covered in the treaty or to strike back at your enemies. Plus you also have a limited number of ships at your disposal." Amaterasu sneered, unknowingly falling into the trap that Weir had set for her.

"Actually all of our ships are equipped with Human/ Zentron hybrid hyper drives, and once the negations with Asgard are concluded we shall have access to their hyper drives and other technology. It's predicted that within the next few short years we will have a number of taskforces patrolling the galaxy." Weir said smiling, thinking how easy the Goa'uld had fallen into her ploy.

"Surly there is something with which we can give you in trade for your assistance in dealing with Ba'al?" Camulus inquired hoping to steer the conversation back in a more favourable direction once again.

"You don't have anything that we want." Weir simply said.

"But…" Camulus started, before being interrupted by Weir. "If that's all then, we're done here." Weir concluded giving a very visible nod to the guards by the stairs, as she stood and walked back to her office with Reynolds, stopping before entering she turned back and faced the three system lords. "Thank-you for the intelligence but don't expect us to help you in your fight with Ba'al. We'll just wait until you have finished fighting each other by then we will have a fleet which will be able to withstand anything he can send against us." She motioned for the guards to escort them out. "You are free to go."

"This isn't over Tau'ri!" Amaterasu spat before being escorted back to the embarkation room.

Once the two saw that the Goa'uld and Oshu where at the base of the ramp waiting for the dialling sequence to finish. "You do realise that you just committed earth to the defence of around thirty planets, ma'am." Reynolds asked with an arched eyebrow.

"I know," Weir nodded as she moved back from the observation window, "Thankfully the Archangel's dry-dock has finished moving into orbit and the next batch of ships is nearly complete including those new D-305 Acidalium class destroyers and the two AS-306 Dulfim class assault ships Independence and Freedom."

"Yeah, I've seen the designs for both of them." Reynolds said dreamily in understanding having seen the plans for both classes. "Those new destroyers are packing as much firepower as the Nelson class but are half the size."

"I've got a feeling that we're going to need them rather soon." Weir said grimly as the Goa'uld delegation stepped through the event horizon of the active stargate, before it disengaged and shut down.

-{[]}-

Seven days earlier the world was a different place, thought general Hammond as he listened to the President, and his old friend, give his address about the limited disclosure about his former command following the massive battle that had taken place in orbit with Anubis and his fleet.

-{[]}-

"This is commodore Hudson," Hudson said, his voice giving weight to the grave situation they were in, "as you know, today was meant to be a historic day, we had finished construction of the first battle group for the humans of Tau'ri earth and trained them in modern space warfare tactics. Unfortunately, this isn't the case." Hudson said moving from the command chair, bringing the comm's earpiece over to the tactical station and studied the sensor readout displayed on it. "Our cousins of this galaxy have now reached a point in their development where they can move into space, but this has brought the attention of the Goa'uld. These Goa'uld have surrounded the planet which has given us sanctuary with a fleet of at least fifty capital class warships, and are even now are launching fighters." Hudson said, "and moment's ago, the Goa'uld Anubis contacted earth and demanded their surrender. There answer was NO!" He finished slamming his fist onto the console. "I've never given up, never surrendered to anything in my life, and I'll be damned if I'm about to start now."

As the commodore cast his gaze around the Archangels bridge he saw that everyone there, from the MACO guarding the entrance, to Cochrane and Campbell, to Welsh, Granger, Newman and even Dvorak were nodding their heads in agreement.

"So long as I command this ship we will never surrender it to an enemy force, we took an oath when we joined the ESMF 'to defend the earth and her colonies' and though this isn't home it is still Earth," He said, "so stand to your stations! Watch out for your shipmates! You've trained for this… you're ready for this. We may be from a different galaxy but we are the best in the Macross Fleet and imperial Star Fleet, and these Goa'uld are about to find out what happens when you piss of either."

The bridge was silent for a moment after Hudson had finished. Then it started, one pair of hands clapping in rhythm… then two, soon the whole of the bridge was clapping as the rhythm picked up speed until it finally reached a loud rancorous applause, complete with shouts of determination.

Inside his heart, Hudson knew that this might be a hopeless battle, more so if his Varauta came out in the heat of the battle, that they were about to enter into and everyone might be heading to their deaths, he also knew that these brave souls would follow him into the afterlife and the fields of Elysium without a second thought.

"XO." Hudson said over the noise, "Let's show them what happens when you piss off a Macross Fleet battlefortress class starship."

-{[]}-

John 'Marauder' Andrews looked out through the canopy of his Thunderbolt Durandal at all of the crescent shaped fighters and pyramid shaped motherships that were arrayed in front of him and shook his head. "Boy we're in it deep this time." He mumbled.

"Marauder, Snips." Came the voice of Kevin 'Snips' Waltfeld. "Dragons are in position and holding."

"Roger that." Marauder replied switching over to the command frequency for the Archangel's air wing. "Command, Marauder. All wing are at red-com one."

"Copy that Marauder," Came the voice of captain Hill. "Be advised that 'Ice Queen' has finished her re-fuelling and equipping of a FAST pack and is en-route to you at this time."

"Copy." Marauder replied, he would be a lot happier when she re-joined the rest of the air wing arranged in defence of Earth, he still wasn't used to the idea of leading a squadron, much less the entire air wing.

"Marauder, Red Demon!" Came the anxious voice of ensign Del Rio. "I have movement on my left flank."

"Easy kid." Replied Marauder flipping over to the fighter control channel. "CAG Did you copy?"

"I copied." Came the cold and steely voice of major April 'Ice Queen' O'Neill, the Archangel's air group commander, "I have lead again, Marauder take your flight and fall back to position Delta an get eyes on what he is talking about."

"Copy that," Marauder responded as he pulled back on his stick and touched his throttle, causing his Durandal to do an end over end flip. "Crowbar you're with me." He said getting his wingman and their ghost fighters to form up on him.

Moving quickly, the mark seven Thunderbolt, Durandal and six Ghost drones made their way to the left flank of the defensive line towards the rear of the archangel over the middle of the North Atlantic. "I'm in position." He said and started to scan the area with his fighter's sensors and his own eyes. "It looks the enemy are trying to probe the line."

"Stay on position." Ice Queen ordered over the fleet wide fighter channel. "We're still on weapons hold."

"Why aren't we attacking?" The pilot known as Crowbar asked.

"Infernum if I know, I guess that the commodore is trying to work this out diplomatically." Marauder replied as he gave his instruments the once over for the tenth time in two minutes. "Doesn't want to be the one to attack first."

"Think it will…" Crowbar asked as he looked over at the SGC's armada of Star-wolves', Starmax's and their own F-302 fighters on the defensive line.

"Attention all fighters." The voice of Ice Queen said cutting Crowbar off. "Command has received word that negations had failed. Stand-by to engage."

Immediately, Marauder began activating his active target systems. "Alright kid this is it." He said to Crowbar. "Follow my lead and watch my ass."

"Got it." Crowbar replied.

In front of them Marauder saw the line of enemy craft begin to move forward and the targeting alarm begin to ring in his helmet signalling that someone was tracking him. "BREAK! BREAK! BREAK!" He shouted as he pitched his fighters nose over rolling to the right, narrowly avoiding a plasma shoot that passed through the space he had just been occupying. "Phoenix squadron weapons free!" He commanded as he slammed the throttle forward. Like a scalded animal, his fighter leapt into the fight with Crowbar and the drones close on his wing.

"Now you've pissed me off." Marauder growled targeting the small cluster of fighters which had shot at him. "Let's see how you like this!" Hearing the locked on tone inside his helmet he thumbed the selector switch to change his offensive weapons from his HPA-01A heavy quantum beam gun-pod to the integrated Fuel and Sensor Tactical packs on the tips of his wings. "EAT THIS!" he shouted as he fired a dozen micro-missiles that streaked away from his fighter like angry bees.

Looking out of his cockpit canopy he watched as the crescent shaped fighters attempted to evade the micro-missile storm coming their way to no avail, he smiled as he watched the three fighters that he had targeted come apart in flash of oxygen enhanced explosions before being snuffed out by the vacuum of space.

"Scrap three!" He announced, looking around he saw that the two distinct groups of fighters had merged into one big jumbled mess of a melee, bullets, beams, missiles and plasma disrupted the darkness of space as the fight gained momentum.

Outside of the fighter melee, the seven ships of Earths small defence fleet moved into a firing position to attack the Goa'uld armada.

And then the Archangel opened fire with her full arsenal of weapons, minus her main over technology super dimensional energy cannon.

-{[]}-

"Have batteries three, five and seven concentrate fire on the nearest vessel. Let's take it out of the fight if we can. Co-ordinate with the rest of the fleet so we don't double up." Said Hudson as he pointed to the highlighted image of the nearest of Anubis Ha'tak's, "And get that representative up here immediately." He said to Granger, "He might have some insight as to what weakness these vessels might have."

"By your command." Granger replied giving Hudson a traditional Hansa salute.

"Sir batteries three, five and seven have a solution on the nearest ship." Said Welsh from the tactical station.

"Sir! CAG reports that the enemy fighters have been fully engaged!" Captain Hill reported from the flight-ops station.

"All Thunderbolt's weapons and modes free!" Hudson commanded. "XO, send a tight beam to the SGC fleet, to initiate the battle plan which we coded to them earlier."

"Right" Dvorak replied picking up a nearby comm.-unit.

"Sir, the enemy capitals are manoeuvring on us." Welsh reported, "Weapons stations and Destroids are requesting instructions."

"Range on target vessel?"

"One thousand thirty sir." Welsh replied.

"Just outside medium range," he mumbled to himself before turning to face Welsh, "Hold all weapons until they reach seven hundred fifty then clear the sky. I want to see what kind of range they have on those flying pyramids." He replied as Ares ships had jumped them at a much closer range than what Anubis had jumped his fleet in at.

"Yes sir." Welsh replied.

"The SGC capitals are moving into a defensive formation around the Prometheus now." Dvorak said as she re-joined Hudson at the tactical plot table, "General Hammond says to leave something for his ships to practice their ship-to-ship combat skills on."

Hudson acknowledge the report with a small nod, his mind having gone completely to focusing on the coming battle, and pointed to the display on the wall. "There trying to flack us to bombard the surface."

"That's what I'd do." Dvorak agreed sheepishly. "The question is, what are we going to do about?"

"Range is seven hundred fifty sir." Welsh announced interrupting the conversation between the senior officers.

Hudson looked up from the display to Dvorak who was watching him intently. "Watch this." He said turning to Welsh, "All batteries and Destroids. FIRE!"

Outside, the huge muzzles of weapons batteries three, five and seven belched out plasma from their high-energy magnetically accelerated Gottfried cannons at their targets along with the excess energy of electric discharges from the monster class destroids as they fired four VLC 10 projectiles that they had loaded. The rounds looked like streaking meteor as they shot across the vacuum of space.

All six beams of green tinted energy slammed into the outer ring of the Ha'tak's, causing massive sympathetic detonations inside their hulls. The motherships seemed to stagger and come to a halt before exploding as their reactors went critical.

"Direct hit!" Welsh announced happily. "Visual sensors and scanners indicate massive damage, there are massive internal detonations, there going up."

"Get to the life-pods." Newman mumbled just as the three targeted Ha'tak's went up.

"What are the rest of the ships doing?" Dvorak asked curious.

"Enemy ships are moving into an attack vector, to counter us." Welsh reported after glancing at the tactical read-out.

"I didn't think it would work twice." Hudson shrugged. "Alright, all forces weapons free, I say again fire at will!" Just before dozens of supper heated low-powered plasma bolts impacted the forward shields.

"Goa'uld ships have opened fire sir!" Welsh announced as the ship rocked slightly while the shields blossomed with a kaleidoscopic rainbow of orange and red hue from the weapons fire.

"Range?" Dvorak asked.

"Eight hundred, ma'am." One of the comm-scan officers announced from the lower bridge.

"So that's their maximum ship-to-ship range." Dvorak said, "Now we know."

Nodding Hudson replied. "Yes, now thought it gets ugly."

-{[]}-

"That's six-teen!" Marauder announced to his wingman as he flew his Durandal through the exploding cloud of debris that was once an Al'kesh, "Better get with the program Crowbar or you'll not even make the boards tonight."

"Can't do much sitting back here looking at your birds shiny new ass!" Crowbar joked in reply as he took out two gliders closing in on them.

"Both of you shut the Pedicabo up!" Ice Queen's voice said inside their helmets. "Marauder, what's your squadrons status?"

"None down and three damaged but hanging in there, all FAST packs are bingo missiles." Marauder reported firing the TW2-MDE/ M25 twin concealed-type MDE beam cannons at an Al'kesh that was making its way towards the bridge of the Japanese Nelson class Yamato. "Enemy fighters are clearing out of this sector and are pushing in towards the portside ARMD cruiser."

"Send half your group to pursue and take the rest to bolster the Dragons." Ice Queen ordered as another of the Ha'tak's exploded in the distance neat the two Nelson class battleships.

"Solid copy." Marauder replied, "Phoenix two, take Phoenix twelve through twenty four and go hunting, the rest of you slug-heads come with me." Marauder barely heard the acknowledgements of his pilots as he focused his eyes on the area off the bow the Archangel, where Dragon squadron was fighting for its life. "Deculture!" he breathed as he took in the unfolding fur-ball off his home bases bow.

The entire fighter battle looked like a huge ball of crescent shaped fighters surrounding a smaller ball of battleoids and fighters that were doing everything in their power to avoid being hit by the massive amounts of plasma being fired at them.

"Pour it on Kids! The Dragons are in deep shit!" Marauder said realising that Dragon squadron was out of range for the ships CIWS and point defences, he jammed his throttle to max red-lining his after burners.

Marauder's Durandal led the way as half of Phoenix squadron shot towards the massive fighter melee that was steadily moving away from the Archangel and towards Anubis's dreadnought.

-{[]}-

"Milord, several of the Ha'tak have lost all power and fires are encroaching on their power cores, and the glider fuel storage area!"

Anubis nodded to acknowledge the Jaffa's report. "Inform the commanders to evacuate their ships and send several Tel'tak to pick them up, immediately."

"This isn't going as planned." Said Ba'al from behind Anubis.

"Calm yourself Ba'al, everything that has transpired has done so according to my design." Anubis replied calmly. "Her'ak, have the third force of Al'kesh move to cover the rescue operations of the destroyed Ha'tak's."

"Yes milord." Replied Her'ak, moving to carry out his gods will.

"According to your design?" Ba'al asked incredulously. "Was it also in your design to lose several of your Ha'tak's against the Tau'ri?"

Anubis cocked his head sideways in a thoughtful gesture, the shrugged. "There are always losses when fighting the Tau'ri, Ba'al." He replied nonchalantly before turning his attention back to the battle visible from his dreadnought's Pel'tak. "Her'ak my gliders are concentrating too much on the group around the Tau'ri banner ship, tell the second and third groups to attack their landing areas, while the rest of the gliders and Al'kesh concentrate of their attack craft."

"Milord, group's three to ten are gone." Her'ak reported.

"Really." Anubis said, and if he still had a physical body would have arched and eyebrow in surprise. "How many gliders and Al'kesh have been lost so far?"

"Fifty-eight milord." Her'ak replied, "We still have one hundred ninety two which can still fight."

"And how many Tau'ri craft have been destroyed?"

"We have ten confirmed kills milord." A lower standing Jaffa at a sensor station said.

"Almost a one to four ratio!" Exclaimed Ba'al "You fool Anubis! That's outrageous! Anubis I demand…"

"You will demand NOTHING," Anubis growled, spinning on the host of Ba'al and pinning him against the bulkhead with his ascended powers, "and while you are on my ship you will maintain the proper decorum. Am… I... Under… Stood?"

Ba'al swallowed hard in the face of Anubis' barely controlled anger and nodded. "Of course Anubis. My apologies for letting my host emotions to overwhelm me."

Anubis stared at him for a moment longer and then released him from his iron grip and allowing him to stand on his own, satisfied that the other Goa'uld was now in his place. "Of course, Ba'al. We all have our moments."

Turning back to the battle Anubis spoke directly to his first prime. "Her'ak, tell the second wave to begin the next phase of the attack."

"At once milord."

-{[]}-

On the bridge of the Archangel, the tension in the air was thick as the deck reverberated from the impact of the Goa'uld's attack underneath the feet of the command crew, while the crew relayed their commands to their various section heads in hushed but urgent tones, everyone doing their best to keep the bridge a calm environment so that the senior staff could think.

"Sir, two of the motherships are closing in on us." Welsh reported from the tactical station, breaking the low level of noise on the bridge.

"They're trying to get inside the flack envelope to engage us at point blank range." Hudson said as he studied the display on the main tactical display on the forward main holo-screen, "Have all batteries and monsters switch to salvo fire. Target Lohengrin's alpha and beta on to the lead vessel."

"Yes sir," Welsh replied tensely, as she began to co-ordinate with Hill to have the fighters clear the attack vector.

"XO, what's our damage?" Hudson asked as another hit shook the deck beneath his command chair.

"Mostly shields and armour so far." Dvorak answered as she studied the damage reports on the main damage control board. "None of their plasma torpedoes have gotten through the pin-points, so we're lucky on that front, but their long range cannons have made some impact. There are hull breaches on decks fourteen and fifteen, we've sealed them off with emergency bulkheads forward of section twelve and aft of section six. We have some damage to across the portside dorsal intercooler that might comeback to bite us if we need to fire the main cannon."

Hudson considered Dvorak's report for a moment. The ship was only lightly damaged, and if they fired the main gun they could clear the system of these Goa'uld spawns of Khyron, but it would leave them at a tactical disadvantage if they had to face any more motherships, and retreat was out as it was antithetical to his nature, it was a quality that his mentor, admiral Bernard, had praised him on before she was killed in the war and his transfer to the Archangel. "A good commander must know when to hit hard, and not be afraid to do so, but a great commander knows when to wait for the right moment then hit them with a knock-out punch." Bernard had once told him, "More importantly, never doubt yourself. If you do then your opponent has already won, so long as you don't doubt yourself, no matter what the situation you are in, you'll always be one move ahead."

"We're not firing the main gun," Hudson said coming out of his memory. "Lieutenant Newman left full rudder, twenty degree up angle on the bow planes. Bring us head to head with the mothership at orange two one nine, tactical instruct Lohengrin's alpha and beta to fire as they bear."

"Aye sir!" Came the chorus of responses from the two officers.

"Sir," Sub-commander Dvorak said leaning in close so she could whisper in to his ear. "We have no idea as to what he has in reserve. He could have reinforcements on the way Kira."

"He doesn't." Hudson replied with a smile.

"How do you know?" His XO asked curiously raising an eyebrow.

Turning, the commodore looked at Dvorak in the eyes and gave her a reassuring half smile. "Because I know him. He showed his hand when he jumped in."

Dvorak looked confused and Hudson pulled her aside, out of earshot of the rest of the bridge staff. "You saw how he jumped his forces in."

Suddenly, like someone flipping a switch as a light went on in Dvorak's eyes. "He arrayed them so that he could capture us. He's gaging us, evaluating our responses seeing what makes us tick. He had already decided to attack long before he ever entered the system. That explains his piecemeal strategy too."

"Exactly." Hudson replied pointing to the main view screen, "He's probing us, seeing what kind of defence the Earth can mount and how it's employed by them."

Dvorak nodded in understanding and the two stepped back to the command chair as Granger re-entered the bridge with doctor Knight in tow.

"Commodore," He said gesturing at the SGC doctor, "doctor Knight, as ordered."

"Thank-you executor." Hudson replied facing the tactical expert from the SGC. "Glade to see you up and about."

Knight nodded in response, "Sorry about the damage I caused." He replied as the deck shuddered under their feet. "Glade to be up and about, though it seems that you're a bit busy just to be checking up on me however, I assume that there was a reason I was asked to come up here?"

"There is." Hudson replied, I was wondering how much you know about Anubis, and about the forces arrayed against us?"

"And what makes you think I am going to give you any answers, or that they will be the truth." Knight asked crossing his arms over his chest.

Hudson smiled slyly, "Because if you don't then I'll tell general Hammond about the fact that you're a spy for the Furling's. We could have very easily turned you over when your friend in the brig smashed up the hanger deck but we didn't."

"Oh, and as if they would believe you." Knight replied, his own sly smile crossing his expression, "The moment that the SGC and Anubis got scans of, and a look at your ship here, that sort of thing became a secondary concern, and you know it. So again, my question is, why should I tell you anything?"

Hudson shrugged, "I assumed that since you were in this predicament due to Anubis' actions, he would be your enemy as well. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all."

"He may be my enemy," Knight said, "but I still don't trust you, and though you're helping the Tau'ri now you could be setting them up. If that's the case then I don't want to be the one to help you destroy the Fifth race."

"I understand your concern." Hudson replied, "I wouldn't want to be the one to explain to supreme commander Thor why I blew my cover."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Knight said with a chuckle, "but what makes you think that I'm a Furling. I could just be a human from another planet or dimension. There is a distinction."

"Indeed there is." Said Hudson, finally understanding where it was that Knight was heading with the conversation. "So ask the question that you want to ask."

"Where are you really from?" Knight asks without hesitation.

"We're from Earth, just not this dimensions Earth." Hudson replied.

Knight watched Hudson for a long moment, scanning his face for any sign of deception. It was only when lieutenant Welsh announced that the Lohengrin's had a firing solution that the alien that had been hiding at the SGC for close to five years finally nodded, accepting that what Hudson had said at face value.

"We have somethings to talk about then commodore, but that will have to wait." Knight said as he pointed to the main tactical display on the forward viewscreen. "For now we have a planet to protect."

-{[]}-

"Milord. The Tau'ri banner ship has moved from attacking multiple Ha'tak's to the ones sent to attack their orbital station." Her'ak reported

Anubis nodded. "As I thought they would." He said as he looked out of the pel'tac's window, "This Tau'ri commander has a keen grasp of space warfare. By attacking those ships, he hopes to divide my force."

"That's nice to know." Ba'al mumbled angrily from behind Anubis.

"We wouldn't have known this until it was too late had I not probed his defences Ba'al." Anubis replied turning and walking back to his throne. "But I believe that I have discovered something of even greater value."

"What would that be?" Ba'al asked as he stepped closer to the throne.

Anubis continued to study the holo-display of the visual feed showing the Archangel's defences, ignoring Ba'al. He knew it would anger the other Goa'uld, but Anubis knew that the other Goa'uld was now well informed as to his place on the ship and that he wouldn't give another outburst. After a few moments in which several small explosions could be seen in the distance, Anubis finally spoke. "They have a shol'va on their ships who is giving them information."

"How so?" Ba'al asked, his voice betraying the fear he felt.

"Look," Anubis said pointing to the view being displayed of the reports coming in from the ships attacking the Archangel. "They are targeting the thermal exhausts ports."

"So?" Ba'al snorted, "What does that have to do with anything?"

Anubis, if he still had a body would've smiled at Ba'al much like a parent would who was trying to explain something to a particularly dense and young child. "You see Ba'al," he began his voice dripping with scorn, "all Ha'tak's, be they yours, mine or that old fool Yu, have one major weakness… it doesn't have enough heat sinks to dissipate the heat generated by the massive engine power plants we use. Thus by targeting the exhaust ports they are seeking to cause the Ha'tak's engines to overheat and shutdown."

"And if that happens?" Ba'al asked already thinking how he could redesign his own fleet of Ha'tak's to compensate for this major flaw.

"Then they will be powerless and be destroyed."

-{[]}-

"It's working sir!" Welsh excitedly announced from the tactical station. "Targeted ships engines are over heating! They're breaking off!"

A massive cheer went up on the bridge as Welsh made her announcement, but it was quickly cut off by Dvorak. "Stow that SPAWN!" She shouts angrily over the raised voices. "We've only turned back two ships, and you are acting like we've defended Earth from the whole fleet! Get your minds back in the fracking game and focus on the remaining ships!"

The bridge was silent for a moment as everyone reeled from Dvorak's tirade, then as one they began moving again with their subdued sense of urgency.

"Sorry about that sir." Dvorak apologized.

Hudson waved it off, having dealt with her temper during the war. "You did the right thing sub-commander." Turning back to face Knight who was stood to the right of him by the communications station. "Seems you were correct. Their thermal exhaust system is susceptible to attack, even with their shields." The commodore said his expression still serious.

"Of course I was." Knight replied with a cocky smile of his own. "But it won't work twice. Anubis is a fast learner, he won't let you use that on him a second time."

"Think he will continue to press his attack?" Dvorak asked as the bridge shook from a monster class destroid firing from its station next to the command and control tower.

"Oh you can bet on it he wants to keep the outpost in Antarctica from being used by the Tau'ri as he knows it would end the rule of the Goa'uld in the galaxy. Only when he is defeated with his ship being blown out from under him will this attack end." Knight responded.

"Then I guess we'll have to do just that then, won't we?" Hudson said with an evil looking little smile on his face. "Comm's send on coded channel two four alpha to general Hammond, Minmay's curtain call in five."

"Aye sir." The communications officer replied as they sent the message to the Prometheus fighting over with the Nelson and Yamato over New York.

-{[]}-

"That's forty-eight heavies!" marauder announced as he flew his Thunderbolt Durandal through the remains of an Al'kesh making an attack run on the Yamato's bridge. "Keep pushing ladies! We're not letting them take down Earth!"

"Marauder! Snips!" Came the voice of captain Waltfeld, "I've got it under control on my end now. Thanks for the assist."

"You owe me a bear when we land, kiddo." Marauder joked as he chased a pair of gliders tracking a lone 302.

"My pleasure." Snips replied as he snap fires a pair of micro-missiles at an Al'kesh.

"Ok cut the crap!" Came the harsh voice of Ice Queen over the channel. "Give me your Arms, Casualty and Expendable reports."

"Phoenix squadron is amber on internal ammo, red on FAST packs, two casualties and twenty two Thunderbolt's who are hot and bothered." Marauder reported.

"Dragon squadron is red on internal ammo, Winchester on FAST packs, six casualties and eighteen Thunderbolts ready to kick ass." Snips reported.

Marauder winched at the number of downed pilots in his counter parts squadron. He knew that if Angel was commanding them then the number would probably have been less, but she was commanding one of the Starmax flights. Still it couldn't be blamed on Snips, he was new to command and unexperienced. This battle would be a lesson he wouldn't soon forget.

"Ok. Phoenix lead take you fighters…" Started O'Neill before being cut off by captain Hill breaking into the channel.

"Attention all Archangel force's. Commence 'Big Wednesday' formation! I say again 'Big Wednesday' formation!"

"Dragons rotate through the Minerva's for resupply everyone else form on the Archangel. NOW!" Ice Queen said as two Durandal's multiple Thunderbolts and Ghost's moved to cover the Archangel.

-{[]}-

"Milord!" Her'ak said pointing to the holographic tactical display. "The Tau'ri banner ship and half their fighters are disengaging!"

Anubis shook his head sadly. "No my loyal first prime," he said in a soft but patronizing tone, "they are falling back to cover the tel'tak that has just come out of hyperspace."

"How do you know that milord?" Her'ak asked.

"That is the ship that I gave to Ronan to take the Shol'va's and SG1 across the galaxy. If it is here they must have what they are looking for. Ready the planetary assault weapons."

"Yes milord!" Her'ak said bowing slightly.

Anubis chuckled and then turned his gaze back out the window. Behind him Ba'al slowly left the Pel'tak and headed for the nearby ring room to ring to an Al'kesh that was cloaked underneath making his escape.

Seconds after Ba'al Al'kesh had jumped into the safety of hyperspace, a constant stream of Alteran smart plasma drones began to tear apart Anubis' dreadnought, Ha'tak's and all the smaller battleships without any trouble.

-{[]}-

Marauder sighed in relief as the canopy rose up and allowed his ground tech to attach a small ladder to his fighter while taking his helmet off. "Weapons on safe, engine ports closed. FAST pack systems safe, reactors on stand-by." He announced to the crew chief.

"Fighter is clear sir, welcome home." The chief replied as he entered the data into a PADD.

"That was along patrol." Marauder said as his feet hit the deck. "If I see another glider today I'll lose it."

""Yes sir." The chief replied absently.

Marauder smiled as he tucked his flight helmet under his arm. "Any word on that SGC pilot 'Shaft', from the rescue Argo's."

"Wolf found all twenty pilots and crews that punched out, only one Starmax crew didn't make it though." The chief said referring to the small force that had been jumped by several gliders and an Al'kesh remains of the Goa'uld fleet two days after the attack on earth.

"Oh," Marauder said, his feeling of a safe return from a long patrol draining. "Shaft?"

"Sorry sir, no news yet?" The chief replied quietly.

Marauder nodded feeling his heart break inside, Shaft, major Cameron Mitchel had been a promising young pilot with a big carer ahead. "Deculture!" He said kicking over a tool cart and sending tools flying across the bay.

"Whoa." Came a voice from behind him, causing him to spin around.

"WHAT!" He snarled as he spun ready to hit something or someone, only to find his counterpart from Dragon squadron captain Jenny 'Angel' Revell's eyes locked on him. Taking a few deep and calming breaths to relax before he spoke again. "Sorry." He said somewhat softer.

"Its alright." Angel replied just as softly. "I've been there."

They both stared at each other uncomfortably for a long moment, while the deck crew continued to clear and refuel the many aircraft on the hanger deck, before Angel finally broke the awkward silence. "You did good out there."

Marauder nodded, his expression stoic and unchanging. "Not good enough." He mumbled just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the hanger.

"Yeah, I heard about Mitchell, he's alive but they reckon he won't be able to walk for the next six months." Angel said.

"First pilot I've ever had seriously injured." Marauder said sighing.

Angel looked at Marauder's face for a long time. Inside she felt his pain and wanted to reach out to him, but the memories of her own experiences with him years ago jaded her thoughts so much so that she let her anger get the better of her. "Well get used to it, Captain!" She spat. "Because it doesn't get any easier."

Marauder nodded absently, ignoring the vailed reference to their failed academy relationship. In his mind, all he could see was that young eager kid whom had been flying on his wing less than an hour ago. All he could think of was how he wouldn't be able to share that post mission drink that he had promised him and how it somehow felt like it was all his fault.

Seeing that Andrews was in a world of his own, Angel turned and walked off without saying another word. She had come to comfort him but once again she had let her own bitterness and anger over their shared past to cloud her judgement. "Someday," She muttered to herself as she entered one of the turbo-lifts from the hanger. "I'm going to keep my big mouth shut."

-{[]}-

Commodore Hudson, weary beyond words from his days of action following the battle of Earth, collapsed into the chair behind his desk inside of his quarters and pinched the bridge of his nose. "What's the final count?"

Sub-commander Dvorak took a seat directly opposite of him and looked down at the PADD with the final after action reports from the various section chiefs. "Including the pilots, ten dead, thirty-seven wounded, two in ICU, but the doc's say that they will all live. Of the air wing, we lost a third of the Ghost drones, and five of Thunderbolts have been declared a total loss and three are going to be down for third stage repairs for at least two weeks."

Hudson nodded. "Have the deck crews bring the float Thunderbolt's on-line to replace those we lost. Also begin looking through the records of ships personal to determine eligibility for flight training, include the members of the crew from the Haze, since we're going to need more pilots to replace the ones we lost."

"Aye sir." Dvorak replied typing the search into the ships records for all personal, both fleeter and Imperial, whom had ever logged time in a veritech, talon or raptor. "I'll also set the Luna base to work building new Ghosts to replace the lost ones."

A ringing of the door alert interrupted Hudson and Dvorak's conversation about the ships air wing.

"Come in." Hudson said dropping a PADD onto the pile on his desk.

Marauder, now dressed in his duty uniform, entered as the sliding doors closed softly behind him and he came to attention just in front of Hudson's desk. "Captain Andrews reporting as ordered sir." He said snapping off a salute.

"At ease captain." Hudson replied as he returned the salute, "I've been going over your performance from the battle the other day. You did a good job."

"Thank-you sir. The guys worked hard the other day, they're the ones that deserve the praise."

"Indeed they do," Hudson replied looking at one of the many PADDs on his desk, "But you did a good job of keeping them tight and reigning in their bad habits. Not a single bird from your unit had to refuel or rearm, and you only lost two pilots. That says something about you captain."

"That's still two too many sir." Responded Marauder.

Hudson looked into Andrews eyes and when he did he saw something hauntingly familiar in them, he also knew what it meant instantly recognizing the danger that lay there in. "John, you can't blame what happened to lieutenant Corbin on yourself."

"He was my wingman, sir. I…" he paused as his voice began to crack as he began to chock up. "I… I, should have been there for him."

Hudson nodded and stood, walking around his desk to where Marauder was standing. "That's what I thought too when I lost the first person under my command. I thought '_I should have been there for her, I know I could have done something_.' The truth is thought, that she would have died even if I had been there."

"But he was my wingman sir!" Marauder hissed, almost sounding as if he was being insubordinate. "I should have been there for him."

"Then the crew of the Daedalus would be dead." Dvorak said as she stood up alongside commodore Hudson. "The fighter you took out while he was covering you was on a suicide run at their portside fuel cell. They had just taken a hit there and there armour system was weakened enough that if he had hit, it would have set off the fuel bank and caused a chain reaction destroying the ship with all hands."

"You saved them captain, and Paul died knowing that what he did by keeping that bomber off you while you dealt with the attacking fighter." Hudson said.

Marauder considered the commodores words for a moment before nodding, accepting what the two senior officers where telling him. "Then sir, the truth is that he not only saved me but also the crew of the Daedalus, sirs."

"Yes," Hudson replied, knowing that he had gotten through to the younger man. "From a certain point of view he did."

"I would like for his record to reflect that sir, that way if we ever get home, his family will know how he died." Marauder said. "That he died saving others from an attack which would have hurt a lot of people."

"I see no problem with that." Hudson replied making a note to add it to second lieutenant Corbin's service record, "Now go and get some rest, I'm sure you'll want to be rested for President Hayes address tomorrow."

Marauder saluted, realising that he was being dismissed and Hudson returned it, letting the captain leave. When the door had closed behind Andrews, Hudson turned to face Dvorak who had taken a seat on the couch underneath the window with the orbital dry dock they had constructed on the far side of the moon moving in to view as it was transferred into earth orbit. "That kid is one of the best fighter jockeys that I've ever seen." He said as he moved to sit back behind his desk, and the piles of PADDs.

"He's turning out to be a not-so-bad leader too." Dvorak said opening her uniform jacket.

Hudson nodded, agreeing his XO. "You know the CAG and I gave him command of that squadron to slap some responsibility into him following the jump, it's amazing the change which it has brought out in him."

-{[]}-

"Ladies and Gents we have a problem right now." General Hammond stood at the very end of the table which he and the other ship commanders from the other nations, in the new central briefing room at Homeworld Command Centre under the pentagon. "We're down to less than half of our fighter and warships assets. The remaining ships we have operational will rotate from their orbital positions back to the surface periodically. The other ships remaining are both out of action for the foreseeable future. Colonel Chekov?"

"Thank-you general, the Korolev has been secured in her dry dock in Vladivostok, the repair estimates by the engineering teams and her ships engineers put the repairs at least two months, provided we can get the materials from the United States government. The bases current stocks will allow us to continue these repairs for the foreseeable future. In addition the majority of our Starmax's and Star Wolves will be operational within the next three weeks, our losses have been severe but we are continuing with construction and the Leonov and her sisters Stroganov and Gnosis should be ready one month from now." Chekov said as he leant back in his chair. "The supplies we have on hand are enough to complete our current ships and commence repairs but not much else. The squadron losses for the Starmax and Star wolf squadrons have been immense leaving us woefully vulnerable if there is another attack."

"The bottle neck of supplies we have will be redistributed to the allied forces as and when they are needed by each county. The Prometheus and Nelson are in as much need of repairs and upgrading as any of the capital ships." Hammond calmly replied. "Commodore Sector?"

"Nelson has taken some damage to her power and shield generation systems. The incomplete field stabilisers allowed some of the impacts to dangerously degrade her shields. In addition a number of their heavier plasma rounds made it through the gaps in the coverage. It has put her construction and commission back by at least three weeks, she'll be fully ready for action in about two months. The good news is that the Drake class construction bay will be ready in the next few days, and the other squadrons of Starmax and Star Wolf's will be operational around the same time as the Nelson is completed. However, we've been forced to scrap almost half of the fighters and bombers that made it back, it's those components that have been salvaged which have allowed us to increase our production rate."

"Good that means that both of our ships should be operational at around the same time." Chekov said. "I am afraid that after construction and repairs, what we have left even with the resources that the United States we will be at least nine months to a year away from commissioning any more spacecraft after the Leonov and her sisters. Our surplus parts will be essential to keep our vehicles flying, leaving nothing to construct new ships."

"The French, Chinese and Japanese allies have sent us their own information, it seems," Sector spoke up, "after we had enquired about the possibility of using what spares we have to construct new fighters or smaller Drake class ships. It would seem that even though the Chinese held back somewhat they weren't lying about the amount of forces they have. The Chinese forces are unable to accelerate their production due in part to the weapons and munitions based embargo's that the UN has levied on them. Their forces have been badly mauled leaving them no choice but to decommission the majority of their force and use the parts to repair the air wing on the Sun Tsu. The French and Japanese are even worse off, the craft which returned will give them both nations two squadrons of fighters but only one flight of six bombers and some spares, they'll need to keep everything running."

Hammond stood up and stopped behind his chair. "The fact is gentleman is that we're pretty much screwed. We don't have the parts or the pilots to build up our forces. The United States own space forces have been cut down by a third, the Odyssey and Daedalus air wings are down to half and the Prometheus main weapons has to be repaired by the Zentradi and our own people which will take at least a week. Like everything else it's going to take time for us to mine, refine and build the parts that are needed to build even a few planes. Now the Goa'uld haven't hit us again… yet. The Asgard and the Zentradi are picketing the system and deploying some sensor and defence platforms but they won't know that the Goa'uld are here until they are almost on top of us."

"Their FTL is impressive. I've seen the basic theories from the briefing packets but seeing it in action was something else entirely." Sector said. "Yet it also makes them dangerous. One ship in the right place at the right time and the Earth would be destroyed. Has the SGC ever encountered anything which could block their passage in hyperspace so close to the planet?"

"Nothing I'm afraid, but the Asgard and the Zentradi are working with the scientists at the SGC and Area 51 to develop something. Damn thing is that Anubis only jumped in that far out because he didn't see the risk that the fleet was or if we had the outpost actively running, US Army specialists are questioning the Jaffa that surrender, but as to what they were thinking beyond 'my god is good, the Tau'ri are bad…"

Hammond's briefing was brought to a halt by a flash of blueish white light, as it receded it left Thor and SG1 in its wake.

"Greetings Thor, SG1. Any news?"

"I am afraid I have unfortunate news." Thor said, "The battlegroup which was dispatched to protect your world by the Asgard high council has been recalled to the homeworld immediately. As the fleet commander it is my duty to return too at the head of the fleet. My use of the Daniel Jackson was only a temporary one, and as such I am afraid I will be leaving within the next twenty hours."

"I see," Hammond said a little dejected, "are there any chances of us being sent any replacements?" He asked politely, while silently hoping inside.

"That's the good news sir." Carter explained. "The ships which are being recalled are the newer O'Neill class battleships and Teal'c of Chulak destroyers, we have however managed to convince the high council to release a squadron of older Baliskirnir class motherships to bolster our planetary defences for a while at least until the fleet is back in the air."

"We, the Asgard, as a race own much to the humans of Earth, but we are in the process of construction on our new homeworld which has been cleared of Replicators. The ships which we are detaching to you are no match for even one of our newer ships, but are more than a match for anything that the Goa'uld could ever field. I am sorry that we are unable to do more than this but it is a very inopportune time for both of our races but I don't have any options in this matter."

Thank-you for your assistance Thor. Good luck with the reconstruction of your homeworld and with whatever it is you are doing."

"I shall return when it is possible for me to do so." Thor said before another flash of blueish white light filled the briefing room as Thor was beamed back to his ship, leaving the seven humans alone again. Hammond turned to the other officers and dismissed them from the meeting realising that he would need to inform everyone about the change in operations due to half of the Asgard force leaving and the replacements would only be six Baliskirnir's.

Once the other two senior officers had left win an airman showing them to the mess hall, he gestured for SG1 to take a seat. "Tell me people how are things over at the SGC?"

"Not good sir." Carter said as she took a seat along with the rest of SG1 around the briefing room table, as if they were in the SGC's own. "Is has somehow leaked out that Cheyenne mountain is the head, or at least part of Project Blue Book. No one is sure where the leak has originated from, but I'm not sure that the SGC will stay undisclosed for long now that the entire planet know and are watching the movements of all the IOA member nations. The Prometheus and Nelson have been positively sighted as have a number of the space fighter airfields."

"I knew about the Prometheus, we were attacked on final approach to the landing facilities."

"What happened sir?" O'Neill asked.

"Some idiots launched a shoulder mounted missile directly into the underside of the ship at close range. It damaged some of the anti-gravity emitters, though the explosive head didn't manage to piece the hull armour, it will however take longer to repair then we originally estimated."

"Damn!" O'Neill exclaimed, "I'd bet that Ronson was mad, sir."

"He wasn't happy and neither was I, since I was in command of the Prometheus for the battle against Anubis. The culprits were discovered when we scanned the area and have been taken into custardy by the FBI."

"Great, that's the last we'll see of them. Anything else gone wrong?" O'Neill asked as he began to doodle a ship design based on the Alteran knowledge still within his subconscious mind.

"It's just what we have been expecting." Jackson told them having seen more of the news, "Anti-war protesters are out in force around the areas which have been confirmed as IOA related bases. A few dozen people have been arrested due to their actions. SG12 and SG15 have been injured at the main gate due to protesters that opened fire as they tried to rush entrance to the mountain. Not to mention the number of alien and UFO hunters that are converging on every confirmed position."

"It is only going to get worse." Teal'c said more as a statement than a question.

"Very probably, a number of the Middle Eastern countries along with North Korea are getting very… vocal, about the fact that we have orbit capable warships and fighters, and more than a few are demanding access to the technologies used to build the fleet," jackson said.

"Well, they know what they can do." O'Neill joked, "I'd trust most of them with Teal'c's staff weapon about as far as I can throw them and even less with the tech in the fleet, sir."

"Agreed colonel, the ships of the fleet are the property of their home nations, and as such they have no right to them what so ever. Looks like the IOA are going to be busy."

"I wouldn't relax too much Jack, that's only the tip of the ice burg. While you were frozen Greenpeace made a play for the outpost, backed by some of the none IOA countries, and when they couldn't get within twenty miles they launched a legal challenge." Jackson said sharing a look with Hammond, Carter and Teal'c, before he continued, "It seems that they want to charge you with both war crimes for your actions against the Goa'uld and breach of the Antarctic Treaty article one since they figure that the drones fired where a part of a military operation."

"They WHAT!" O'Neill screamed as he shoot to his feet.

"It's true sir." Carter says having been told by Jackson while O'Neill and Thor had been addressing the UN. "A few of the European, Middle Eastern powers, African nations and North Korea have all demanded that you be removed from command prior to war crimes hearings at The Hague."

"This has got to be a joke." O'Neill says as he sits down again and cupping his hands on his head and shakes it.

"I'm afraid not colonel, but the President has said that, at this moment we are at war and no officer will be prosecuted for any war crimes until the conflict is ends." Said Hammond, softly to his second-in-command. "He also told the delegation that you did what was necessary to protect the planet and it would be a cold day in hell before he let you take the fall. It would seem that Henry likes you colonel."

"Thank god for small mercies." O'Neill said before he mumbled, "Fuck! How do I get myself into these situations?"

"No clue Jack, you're just gifted that way."

-{[]}-

"Run that by me again doctor!" Hayes asked through the speaker phone in Weirs office.

"It was the only thing that I could think of that would get them to leave without much trouble." Weir responded without hesitation. "Sir if Ba'al breaks the treaty and the Asgard don't show up to stop his violation, then he will launch a full scale assault on Earth, and while I do believe that we could repel such an assault, it would also severely cripple the fleet again and possibly further harm the planet. I think that our best choice at the moment is to keep the fighting out of the solar system, this way if Ba'al attacks one of the planets under the treaty he should think that he Asgard are letting us do their job for them, which isn't really that far from the truth."

"She's right mister President." Weir heard general Hammond say through the line. "As long as Ba'al and the rest of the Goa'uld think that the Asgard can still enforce the treaty then the Earth will remain safe, yet if he even suspects that this isn't the case then he will attack."

"How long until the fleet is ready again and the new ships are launched?" Weir asked not knowing how bad the fleet had been hit.

"Most of the fleet will be ready in a few days, but the Nelson, Korolev and Sun Tsu are going to be in dry dock for at least two months, and the next batch of ships are at minimum six to nine months from launch." Hammond said.

"Well then we had better speed up construction," Hayes replied, but everyone knew that it was an order and not a suggestion. "something tells me that we will need them soon."

-{[]}-

The Heracles, the first of the Zentron built Minerva class ships built for the Earth in half the time it would have taken the earth dry docks, had been in the solar system containing the protected planet of K'Tau for the last week. Colonel Prendergast's mission had been a simple so far as the deployment of a constellation of Asgard designed monitoring satellites to allow earth to monitor all of the systems which fell under the Protected Planets Treaty to make sure they weren't attacked by the Goa'uld.

"Sir, I'm detecting a vessel in hyperspace on a path for this system. Estimates on the course show that the approaching craft will exit hyperspace near to K'Tau's outermost moon." Said the long range sensor operator.

"Very well. Helm, plot a course and give me full sub-light. Tactical bring us to level two battle stations and deploy all weapons." Responded Prendergast.

At full sub-light the Heracles was only minutes from the predicted interception point, and as she close she deployed her full array of armament, minus her bow mounted positon cannon. Almost as if on cue a large purplish blue tinted hyperspace window opened and two Ha'tak class motherships exited.

"Ha'tak vessels, this is the Tau'ri Defence Forces ship Heracles. Your presence here is a direct violation of the Protected Planets Treaty. I highly advise you to re-enter hyperspace and return to safer pastures." Prendergast said sending a subspace message to the two Ha'tak's, before they could even register the fact that they had company in the system.

"Sir, they are raising shields and bringing weapons online." A sensor operator reported detecting the in power transfer on the offending ships.

"Ok people, they want to do it the hard way. Shields up and target both ships." Ordered Prendergast as the command deck lowered into the armoured bridge below.

The large holographic view screen switched to an active comm-link from one of the Ha'tak's. clearly these vessels belonged to Ba'al as it was he who was on the other end of the link.

"Tau'ri vessel, I am Ba'al. It would seem that the rumours where true, but that is of no concern. I hereby lay claim to this system, and it is you who are in violation of the treaty, leave now." Ba'al ordered in a condescending tone.

"I'm afraid I can't do that Ba'al. This system is under the protection of both the Asgard and the Tau'ri defence forces. Again I advise you to leave this system immediately." Responded Prendergast as out of a hyperspace fold the truly massive form emerged. The SDF type two battlefortress easily dwarfed the other three ships combined. In seconds the vessels shields where raised. Aboard Ba'al's Ha'tak's preparations where quickly made to fire on both vessels in their sights.

"This is commodore Hudson of the Zentradi Macross Fleet vessel Archangel." Hudson said breaking into the channel. "This system is under the protection of races allied with the Zentradi, and whom are technologically superior to your own ships. It is highly inadvisable to dispute this fact, if you value your lives be some where else."

"The Zentradi are nothing more than a Tau'ri deception, it is you who will be defeated." Spat Ba'al in typical Goa'uld fashion.

"If that is what you think then you are a fool. Your technology is no match for the Heracles let alone that of the Archangel. Ignore this final warning and you will meet the same fate as that of Anubis and you it was that deceived." Confidently stated Hudson, as the Archangel's massive secondary one hundred and seventy eight centimetre rail cannons moved to target the two Ha'tak class ships.

Ba'al may have been brave by Goa'uld standards, but he had seen how powerful the two ships facing him were, and if the rumours where to be believed the Archangel had taken out Ares entire fleet with one shot. With a simple order, Ba'al ordered both of his Ha'tak's to re-enter the relative safety of hyperspace and leave this system quickly.

The people on the planet below where safe never knowing that their freedom had been at risk. K'Tau was safe.

-{[]}-

On Earth a single Argo class transport ship is flying over the frozen landscape south of the McMurdo base, in Antarctica, escorted by a pair of Starmax bombers towards a small dome and about half a dozen small out buildings and some Zentron rapid deployment base modules, namely barracks, control stations and medical stations. Sitting in the co-pilots seat major John Sheppard was taking in the controls of his new posting while he chatted with one of the passengers, the recently promoted brigadier general O'Neill as they began moving over the mountains near the base.

"Apache, Black Hawk, Harrier, Cobra, Osprey…" Sheppard said glancing once more at the controls.

"That's a lot of training for the Antarctic." O'Neill quips, making the other pilot in the cockpit smirk.

"Until six months ago it was the one continent that I'd never set foot on."

"It's my least favourite continent."

"I kind of like it down here." Sheppard says causing O'Neill and the primary pilot to look at him.

"You like it down here?" O'Neill asks, his eyes going wide in surprise at the younger man statement.

"Yes sir, it's kind of relaxing and calming." He says as he checks his instruments again. "We should be at the site in about ten minutes."

-{[]}-

Meanwhile at the outpost several scientists and Zentradi are working on analysing one of the drones as doctor weir, who had been transferred from the SGC by the IOA, walks by working on an iPad and nods to the project lead, Peter Grodin.

"Doctor Weir."

"Peter." She says as she walks past, heading towards the main part of the excavated Alteran outpost, the drone interface and control chair where the vast majority of the site is and can hear the almost shouting accents of the Canadian physicists Rodney McKay and the Scottish medical and sites CMO the, doctor Carson Beckett.

"You see? Nothing." Beckett says as he gets up out of the chair and starts to walk back towards to the infirmary that had been set up down here, since it was a ten minute trip to the surface.

"Carson! Get back here!" McKay shouts as he begins to chase after him.

"I could sit in the bloody thing all day and it wouldn't do any good. It's a waste of time. Excuse me, doctor Weir." He says as he walks past her continuing his escape to his domain.

"He's not even trying." McKay says pointing to the retreating form of the Scotsman.

"But he was the one who discovered the gene which this technology responds to."

"Yeah, well, he said that he wished that he never had it."

"Really?" Weir asks somewhat shocked, and with a hint of sarcasm.

"I know, can you believe that?" McKay says incredulously not hearing her sarcasm, causing Weir to smile.

"We could always test you again for the third time Rodney." She jokes.

"Funny." He responds as he rolls his eyes.

"We have only found a handful of people that who are genetically compatible with the Alteran technology and despite your heroic efforts with lieutenant Cochrane, to interface our technology with theirs, we need every single one of them to sit in this chair, and that includes doctor Beckett."

"What am I supposed to do?" McKay says shrugging, "He's afraid of the thing."

"This chair controls one of the most powerful weapons known to anyone. I'm afraid of the thing, but every time someone sits in it we learn something new about the Alteran's who built this outpost, and why they built it. Doctor Beckett should be proud that he is genetically more advanced."

"It's not more advanced." McKay huffed as he pouted. "It's a random characteristic of…"

"This really bothers you, this whole gene thing huh?" Says doctor Morse having snuck up on the pair.

"Oh I'm clearly overcome with envy." He says sarcastically, as Jackson comes around the corner from one of the information vaults that they had discovered near the chair.

"Just the people I need to see." He says before turning and walking away again, leaving the trio confused for a few seconds before he returns and says "Come with me." Which gets the other three to follow him to a small lab just down the ice covered metal walls of the outpost. "We've gotten closer over the last month to finding the location of the Lost City of Atlantis, and it turns out we've been looking in the wrong place."

"Now, we thought that we had the stargate address, yet when I ran them through the Archangel's astrometrics lab computers in an effort to pin it down the results we inconclusive." Says lieutenant Campbell as she draws on a wipe board in the lab the point of origin symbol for Earth.

"That's the point of origin for Earth." Weir says.

"That's not it." Jackson says looking like the cat that ate the canary.

"Then your address must be incorrect." McKay says not noticing Jackson and Campbell's faces.

"No sir, it's not incorrect." Campbell says, drawing a new symbol in between the earth symbol and the symbol before it. "Just incomplete."

"What are you two saying?" Weir asks as Campbell labels the last two symbols.

"It's an eight symbol address. What we are looking for may be further away than we ever imagined, but it's not out of reach."

"Atlantis?"

"Atlantis, we may be able to go there." Jackson says with a grin like a little kid.

-{[]}-

"Look, we've been through this, I'm not your man." Beckett says as McKay and Cochrane half carry half push him back towards the chair.

"Keep moving." McKay orders giving him a small push.

"I'm a doctor, a medical doctor." Beckett protests.

"There's nothing to be afraid of." McKay says as Beckett turns to run off again.

"You don't understand. I... I break things like this."

"Take it easy doc," Says Cochrane reassuringly as he pulls out his field scanner, "this thing has survived for millions of years intact, I'm sure that it will survive you for five minutes, now just sit down, close your eyes and relax."

Sighing in frustration Beckett does as he's asked, putting his hands on to the control pads on the arms briefly. "And again nothing." He says as he tries to stand up.

"This time, just try to think about where we are in the solar system." McKay says pushing him back down gently.

Beckett sighs again as he recloses his eyes, staying like that the for several seconds. "I think I feel something." He says as he reopens his eyes and looks at the pair. "I think it could be launch related."

"Shut up and concentrate." McKay jokingly says while Cochrane rolls his eyes smirking.

Beckett just looks at the two for a moment, then closes his eyes. After a few seconds of nothing happening the lights on the back of the chair activate and the chair reclines which causes Beckett to panic. Nearby the drone which Grodin is working on with a few other scientists' powers up drawing power from its own internal micro ZPM, making the team jump back in shock as everyone near it turns and stares at it for a second before it shoots off the examination table and flying around the coven and then straight up the shaft towards the surface and through the roof of the dome.

"What's happening?" Someone shouts as a console sparks near them, as Beckett just stares in shook.

"What did I do?" He panic's as the drone shoots up the ice shaft past the lift rocking it with its energy wake.

"GET US BACK DOWN THERE!" Weir screams as she stress back down the shaft.

-{[]}-

"Attention all inbound craft, we have a rogue drone that could seek a target on its own. Land immediately and shut down your engines. This is not a drill. I repeat…" Says the local air traffic controller over the radio.

"It's too late. Hang on!" Sheppard shouts as he swings the Argo out of the drone's way, while the two Starmax's pushed their thrusters to max as they dived to the snow covered ground below. The drone circles around the three craft to at them from behind, forcing the trio to break apart as it grazes the wing of one of the Starmax's causing it to trail smoke from the damage caused, while the drone swings around again and heads back towards the Argo.

"Break right!" O'Neill shouts from the rear passenger cabin.

"Yes sir." Sheppard says as the Argo banks hard to the left.

"I said right MAJOR!" Screams O'Neill.

"Yes sir, I'm getting to that, sir." Sheppard says as he swings the Argo hard over to the right into a nose dive as the drone whizzes past them again.

-{[]}-

As the elevator reaches the cavern again, doctors Weir and Morse look around at all the damage the drone had done before dashing to the control chair where Beckett is still sitting and looks at her with her with very sad eyes and look upon his face.

"I told you I was the wrong person for this." He says almost begging to be pulled out of the chair.

"It doesn't matter now, just do something!" Snaps McKay while Cochrane scans the chair trying to find the controls interface to shut down the chair.

"Like what!" Beckett pleads for help.

"Carson, just concentrate on shutting the drone down before it hurts anyone." Weir says softly and calmly to the panicking doctor, who closes his eyes and takes a deep calming breath as he concentrates on shutting down the drone.

-{[]}-

"I can't see it." Sheppard says as he and his co-pilot/ gunner continue scanning the area looking for the highly advanced smart weapon. "Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!" shouts O'Neill from the back transport, having somehow sensed where the drone is.

Instantly Sheppard puts the transport into another nose dive as the drone over shoots them by a few inches, and swings around and down to hit them from underneath.

"What about now?" O'Neill asks.

"Now's good." Sheppard says as he brings the transport in for a landing and pulling the emergency shutdown handle. "Sir what the hell was that?"

"Wait for it." O'Neill says holding up a finger, as the drone smashes through the snow bank in front of them and heads directly for the transport which is still shutting down.

"Out!" Sheppard shouts as the crew unbuckle their safety webs and make a dash for the door out of the transport at the rear of the craft. As the three reach the back Sheppard and the gunner dive out of the back, just as the ZPM powering the drone to switches back to stand-by as its internal lights switch off and skims across the ice and snow stopping a few inches across from O'Neill who is sitting on the snow under the wing. O'Neill and the others just stare at it for a few seconds before cautiously sitting up on the ice on the ground.

-{[]}-

"I think I did it!" Beckett sighs as he gasps opening his eyes seeing everyone staring at him, before the cavern erupts with a cheer and Weir sighs in relief.

-{[]}-

Back on the surface Sheppard, O'Neill and the co-pilot all walk back into the transport as a pair of Laser Rapid Assault Trackers are deployed from the escorting Starmax's as a pair of star Wolfs drop off a couple of the new troop/ cargo variant Snowrams to take the drone back to the outpost. The two pilots sit on the opposite side of the troop bay, a little breathless and stunned by what had just happened.

"That was different." Sheppard says covered in snow, as the co-pilot just nods in agreement absently.

"For me not so much." O'Neill shrugs popping a small hard boiled sweet in his mouth, and tossing one to the flight crew of his transport.

-{[]}-

"Major Sheppard is reporting that the drone appears to have been incapacitated." Reports as United States marine, lieutenant Ford, causing those gathered around Beckett, who is still in the chair, to sigh with relief. "General O'Neill's transport is unharmed and on its way again. ETA six minutes."

"Thank god." Weir says with genuine relief in her voice.

"Holy crap!" Beckett says slumping down in the control chair as a hologram of the solar system pops up above his head.

-{[]}-

"Jack!" Jackson says as he walks over to the lift where Sheppard, O'Neill and a handful of scientist step out of it, annoying several of the SF's nearby due to the fact that he had just called a one star general by his first name so casually.

"Daniel!" He says in greeting, "What's with the warm welcome?" He asks in a mock serious tone.

"Wasn't me. Erm, how did you manage to, uh…?"

"Keep my ass from being blown into orbit?" He says as he gestures over his shoulder to Sheppard who was looking around at everything like a goldfish. "The exceptional flying skills of major John Sheppard." He says in praise before saying in a joking tone. "He likes it here."

"Exceptional." Jackson says as he looks at Sheppard in surprise. "You like it here?"

Sheppard just shrugs as O'Neill turns Jackson to avoid him walking into a pair of MACO's carrying a workbench towards the lift. "What say we skip to the part where you start talking really fast?"

"What? Oh right." Jackson says snagging a pair of rackajino's off a counter near them. "Weirs in here." He says as he hands O'Neill one of the cups and leads him down towards the astrometrics lab that had been set up.

O'Neill pauses briefly and turns to face Sheppard. "Hay." He says to get the young majors attention, "Don't touch anything."

"Yes sir." Sheppard says as he moves to the counter with the coffee machine on and looks around a little bewildered, at everything he is seeing, "And I thought that aliens attacking was as weird as my life could get." He mutters as he takes a sip of his coffee.

A short while later Jackson showed O'Neill into the mobile astrometrics lab where Weir, McKay and lieutenant's Campbell and Cochrane where waiting for the general to arrive.

"Jack as far as we've been able to tell from the outposts data banks, the Alteran's, as they called themselves, packed up their entire city and left somewhere around five to ten million years ago." Jackson says.

"Their flying… city?" O'Neill asks with barely contained smirk.

"What?" Jackson asks knowing his friends mind and what he was thinking about it.

"Flying city." O'Neill says holding back his laughter.

"Can't wait to see his face when he sees the images of an island cluster colonization ship in the Archangel's databanks." Mutters Cochrane to Campbell in Zentron causing her to giggle.

"Well keep in mind that this is the race who built the stargates," Jackson said, "they did everything, well big."

"So why did they leave?"

"Why'd they leave?" Jackson says taken aback that O'Neill was acting like Hammond in the briefing. "Um, who knows? We know the Alterans' here on Earth were suffering from a plague, doctor Beckett's team are looking at that data. Um, maybe some of them were trying to start over seeding new life in a new galaxy, maybe that what they did. The point is we know where they went."

"Pegasus."

"Yes sir." Says Campbell, "It's the name of a dwarf galaxy which makes up the local galactic cluster."

"After all this time, what are the chances of actually meeting them?" McKay asks the question that is on everyone's mind.

"Who knows," Jackson says shrugging, "But isn't that a good enough reason to go?"

"I've been choosing members for this expedition for months, doctor. I'm not the one who needs convincing." Weir says with a happy tone of voice and a smile as she looks at O'Neill.

"Oh I'm convinced." O'Neill says as he looks over at Jackson. "Have fun."

"Uh," Jackson says shocked by O'Neill's response, "It's a little bit more complicated than that."

"We need the Zed P M to power the gate." Says McKay quickly before Jackson can elaborate.

"The what?"

"The Zee PM. He's Canadian." Jackson says to O'Neill.

"Before you ask sir," Cochrane says, "It's the power module that you recovered from Taonas and is powering the base and the weapons."

"The answer is no." O'Neill says knowing that he and the joint chiefs would say. "That is the only one we have to defend the planet now that a third of the fleet is in dry-dock under repair, and the other two thirds are patrolling the planets of the protected planets treaty."

"Jack." Says Jackson as he begins to plead his case for using the ZPM, "You know that gating to another galaxy requires an enormous amount of power."

"Yes I do." Agreed O'Neill but unwilling to concede the point. "Find another way."

"There is no other way Jack, even the Zentron reactors on the fleet aren't anywhere near powerful enough." Jackson says as the two Zentradi officers in the briefing nod in agreement with him.

"Ok, and you think that you'll find more of these Zee thing on Atlantis?"

"Yes," Jackson says, "but who knows what else we might find there? This isn't just some other civilisation we're talking about, these are the gate builders, the people who seeded the galaxy with life."

"The potential wealth of knowledge and technology, it outweighs anything we've come across since we stepped through the stargate or we meet the Zentradi." Weir says in an attempt to swing the general's opinion favour of using the ZPM to power the gate.

"Well, with the amount of power you'll need to make this trip, odds are you'll be stuck out there until we get the fleet up to strength." O'Neill says pointing out a flaw in the proposal.

"Yes, my expedition members are all aware of this, but the benefit to the human and Zentron races is far greater than the risks, general, and it is a risk that every single member of the expedition is willing to take." Weir said as she and McKay look at O'Neill with a hopeful expression.

O'Neill thinks about it carefully, looking at the five other people in the lab with Jackson, Weir and McKay looking like lost puppies, when he hears the sound of a Scottish man shouting for doctor Weir.

"DOCTOR WEIR!"

"Yes," She says as Beckett bursts into the lab, "What is it." She asks knowing that Beckett's department was looking at the data about the plague.

"You need to come quick, you to general." He says as he lends them back to the chair.

"Who is this?" She asks as she follows Beckett into the chair room with O'Neill and the others not far behind her.

"I said don't touch anything." O'Neill says as he realises that Sheppard has sat in the chair and activated it.

"I… I… I just sat down sir." Sheppard stutters out in shock at his unexpected reaction with the Alteran technology.

"Major, think about where we are in the solar system." McKay instructs the unwitting test subject.

For a few seconds Sheppard is confused by the request until he shrugs and thinks about a map of the solar system as he remembered it in his old high school science classes. Instantly the computers in the outpost use the sensors to scan the solar system highlighting the ships in orbit as friendly and a structure out at Pluto, and displaying it all as a real time hologram over Sheppard's head. Everyone gazes up at it as Sheppard just looks at it frowning. "Erm, did I just do that?" He asks puzzled.

"What's that out by Pluto?" McKay asks pointing to it causing Sheppard to look at the planet as it zooms in to fill the map with a label in Alteran, causing everyone to look at Jackson since he is the most proficient in reading Alteran.

"It says, spatium unum lapathum." Jackson says reading the label before translating it for everyone else, "Erm, I think it translates to space dock one." Shocking everyone.

-{[]}-

A short while later Weir is walking with O'Neill back through the outpost having lost Jackson and McKay in the records room as they begin searching for more information about the recently discovered space dock in orbit of Pluto.

"We could be on our way to discovering an entirely new civilisation. Best case scenario, we will meet actual Alterans who are willing to help us, but if we don't…" She trails off realising that O'Neill isn't paying attention to her. "The truth is general, we need him."

"I'm sorry doc, I need Jackson here." He says as he shivers having seen the cryo-pod as he and Weir continue walking towards the lift.

"I'm talking about major Sheppard." Weir says interrupting him.

"Oh," O'Neill says shocked, "Don't you already have a couple of dozen or so people who can use this technology?"

"Yes with concentration and training they can make it work, but with major Sheppard, its natural almost as it was an extension of his body."

"You know I checked into his service record."

"I know all about the whole supposed black mark in Afghanistan." Weir says picking up a coffee from the table near the lift. "He was trying to save the lives of that black hawk crew."

"Disobeying a direct order in the process."

Hearing that Weir smiles at O'Neill's words. "Don't forget that I have read your own file general."

"Right." He says stepping into the lift glancing at her uncomfortably, before letting out a long breath. "Ok. It's your expedition, you want him, you ask him."

"That's the thing, I already have."

"Really?" O'Neill says holding the doors to the lift open.

-{[]}-

"This isn't a long trip." Says O'Neill as he watched Sheppard go through his pre-flight checks on the transport as O'Neill stands by a seat in the troop bay of the Argo that was being used to transport him and several scientists back to McMurdo, "So I'll be as succinct as possible."

Sheppard continued with his pre-flight checks for a few seconds, then looks at O'Neill as he says nothing further, but just looks at him. "Well, that's pretty succinct."

"Thank-you."

"I told doctor Weir that… I'd think about it."

"And? So? Well? What?" O'Neill asks as Sheppard fires up the transports engines."

"With all due respect sir, we were just attacked by an ancient missile, then I found out that I have some mutant gene that lets me control this Alteran technology, not to mention there's these expeditions to other galaxies two months after I learnt about the fact that the government has been in contact with aliens for nearly two decades."

"You know," O'Neill says switching tracks, realising he was getting nowhere with his current plan, "this isn't about you major. This is a lot bigger than that."

"Right now, at this very second, whether I decided to go on this mission or not seems to be about me." Sheppard says as he pulls his helmet on.

"Let me ask you something." O'Neill asks before realising that Sheppard has placed his helmet on so he picks up a headset from the rack next to the hatch so he can continue talking to him. "Why did you become a pilot?"

"I think that people who don't want to fly are crazy."

"And I think that people who don't want to go off world are equally as whacked. Now if you can't give me a yes by the time that we reach McMurdo, I don't even want you."

-{[]}-

"Good evening, our top story today is the censure and request by a number of countries worldwide for the arrest and imprisonment of brigadier general Jonathan J. M. O'Neill. The head of Project Blue Book is being accused of a number of war crimes against the Goa'uld Empire, conspiracy to defraud the general public, murder, genocide and numerous counts of minor crimes."

"General O'Neill headed the defence of this planet during the short-lived battle against the Goa'uld Anubis almost two months ago. During this time general O'Neill was responsible for using a number of unknown weapons of mass destruction against the beings of that fleet. According to a number of international conventions regarding the use of these sorts of weapons, the fleet under the United States Air Force and directly under the command of O'Neill constituted a willingness to cause mass murder against the human race."

"With more on this we go to Harold Gainsborough outside the American embassy in London."

"Thank-you Carol. As you can see behind me a number of protesters have begun to congregate around the gates to the US embassy here in London. Several hundred supporters of the war effort have begun to converge here in respect for general O'Neill. Many believe that the general did what was necessary to keep the planet from capitulation against an unknown force possibly hostile to our way of life."

"Other members of anti-war and nuclear disarmament groups have also been making noises around not only the American embassy, the Chinese, French, Russian and Japanese consulates and in parliament square during the last week. In a number of incidents the police have had to forcibly separate members of both sides during near riots at the news that general O'Neill may be arrested for his actions in the battle."

"It is currently unknown just how many nations have made the request that general O'Neill explain his actions against the Goa'uld, including the use of some form of extremely heavy nuclear ordinance which were capable of being seen from the surface of Earth as well as several hundred strategic nuclear weapons being fired killing at least 10,000 people aboard those ships which were destroyed in the attack. A spokesman for Project Blue Book has denied that the International Oversight Agency has refused to allow changes to be brought against general O'Neill. Pentagon officials have not released an official statement nor has general O'Neill answered the charges brought at The Hague."

"A statement however has been release by the office of the President of the United States wherein the President has placed his full political weight behind his officer resulting in a small number of countries with the statement and putting their own support behind O'Neill…"

"This just gets better, doesn't it?" General O'Neill asks as he and Jackson sit in his office at the SGC listening to sky news.

"It's just noise Jack. People want to get under the skin of the current administration and you are the perfect target in their eyes."

"I've saved the planet I don't know how many times," moaned O'Neill jokingly, "doesn't that actually count for anything anymore?"

"You've never cared before." Says Jackson trying to keep the mood light.

"They weren't trying to hang me before."

"It's all hot air Jack. There's nothing anyone can really do for the moment."

"It's the 'for the moment' part that I'm worried about Danny boy, I blow up a few ships and they decide that I need to be busted for it."

"It was more than a few ships O'Neill." Says Teal'c as he enters the office with major Carter in tow.

"Somebody was trying to enslave the planet. AGAIN!" He shouts letting his frustration out while his former team just smile at him. "What did they want me to do, let them land on the white house lawn and take over?"

"I doubt it sir."

"Then why am I getting it in the neck?"

"People hate the US military on principal. You're just the most visible member at the minute. You knew you would get this kind of thing when you took the job. It's not like being on SG1 anymore."

"No at least then I could shot the people who were trying to hang me."

"Look do you want me to join the delegation they're sending to sort this out?"

"They're sending a delegation?" O'Neill asks shocked.

"Erm, yeah. There was a memo… never mind."

"What? I read my memos."

SG1 look at him all with a look that says we know you, causing O'Neill to shift uncomfortably. He knew that the trio in his office knew him all too well to let that one slip without any comeback.

"Ok, some of the time."

"Jack."

"Walter reads them and puts them in a report okay."

"Which you leave in your 'in tray' for a week or more."

"No," he says grabbing the file with the memo about the delegation to The Hague in, "see its right here on top. Delegation to The Hague, major Davis commanding the team… alright fine, I hadn't read it." He says throwing the file down in frustration.

"So you want me to go?"

"Well as much as I want you to, your need here. The negotiations with some of the other core members of the United Nations and NATO are due in a few days. Davis will have to deal with it with Weir before she goes to Atlantis."

"You know I could go to Atlantis in her place?"

"And lose the only one in the archaeology department that knows when 'not' to touch something." O'Neill says air quoting around the last part. "No the mission will just have to stay on hold for the time being. So any other ideas?"

"Nope." Jackson says a little down hearted.

"Didn't think so." He says lightly banging his head on the desk a few times, "I. Am. So. Screwed." He mutters as he bangs it a few more times, before finally regaining his professionalism, "Did the FBI get anything out of those idiots that fired on the Prometheus as it was landing?"

"Indeed."

"It seems that they are some kind of political anarchists, against what they see as the military conspiracy, which is keeping the people of America in the dark and are hiding the truth about what is really going on." Says Carter barely hiding her smirk. "It seems that aliens and spaceships were as far away from what they believed was going on was funny."

"Let me guess, secret weapons, genetic experiments and mind control?"

"Pretty much?" Shrugs Jackson.

"This is embarrassing." Says O'Neill face palming. "We need a better class of terrorist."

"So what's going to happen?"

"Well, they've been arrested and thrown into a maximum security prison for attacking a military target. Probably for the rest of their lives."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"What can I do Daniel?" He said sounding very disheartened, "I can give up and watch as thirty years of service goes down the drain, or I can keep playing the game and let the Goa'uld attack us again. The IOA haven't removed me from command of the SGC yet, so I'll do what I always do and beat the enemy."

"I hope your right sir."

"General?" a voice from the doorway to the briefing room said, interrupting the conversation and causing the group to turn towards the sound and see Harriman stood there. "The White House just contacted us, the President is requesting yours and doctor Jackson's presence as soon as possible."

"Thank-you Walter. In form the White House that I'll be there momentarily." O'Neill dismissed the man that after Siler, knew more about the base than most, with a nod and turned to his friends. "Well considering my day so far, this could either be very good news or possibly the worst news since Sara's solicitor sent me the divorce papers. Come on Space Monkey we've got an appointment to keep, this part I love." He says as he pulls out a small radio from the charger setup behind his desk next to a picture of the very first team that stepped through the gate and several of the Abydonian's, including Kasuf, Sha're and Skaara, all those years ago. "November two this is Sierra Golf Command actual, me plus Sierra Golf Delta Juliet direct beam to Castle security section."

"Understood." Said the comm.-officer on the Japanese Nelson class Yamato. "Sierra Golf Command actual plus Sierra Golf Delta Juliet direct, transport underway."

The two men in that had been designated where enveloped in a flash of blueish white light and reappeared sixteen thousand miles away within the heavily secured 'Box' under the back lawn of the White House. The specially designed shielding system allowed the fleet to beam through the heavy anti-beaming shielding which had been recently been installed at all major military and governmental buildings of the IOA allied countries. As they materialised they were met by a number of heavy weapons emplacements, a mix of machine guns and salvaged staff cannons from the armouries of the damaged Ha'tak's in orbit. A small contingent from Seal Team Six backed up the weapons behind thick ship grade metal plating and Tok'ra one-way shields leading towards a narrow door way out.

"Place any weapons you may be carrying into the receptacle to your left." A voice said from a concealed speaker.

O'Neill placed his side arms as well as a pair of short knives, a butterfly blade and an old battered Swiss Army knife from the ankle holsters and hidden compartment in his belt buckle. Once he was done he moved aside and was stunned when Jackson placed not only his standard issue Beretta sidearm that he had been carrying since the day of worldwide disclosure but two small knives and a smaller Walter P99 as well.

"Daniel?" O'Neill askes with a raised eyebrow.

"What can I say, I've been working with you and Ferretti for the last decade." Was all that the other man said shrugging, and before the older man could respond the voice of the security controller spoke again.

"State your name, password and clearance code then standby for an identity scan."

"O'Neill, Jonathan, password 'Peek-a-boo', clearance code Sierra Golf Charlie Actual one nine six seven two Alpha Tango."

"Jackson, Daniel. Password 'Frasier', clearance code Sierra Golf one zero one zero seven six two three one three Alpha."

"Stand by for security scan."

O'Neill looked at his friend, "Frasier?"

"What?" Jackson says blushing a little.

"Nothing. I'm not complaining."

The scanners swept over the two men as they talked, checking for any concealed weapons, infestation of any kind or hidden bugs. The possibility of the two men having been replaced was a fact not being discounted, and for several long minutes every piece of identification verifying technology that the SGC had managed to beg, borrow, steal or create of their own volition. Everything from their cloths, their bodies' right down to their very DNA was scanned by the mass of sensors surrounding them. Finally the system shut down and the force shield protected door swung open and the four navy seals placed the safeties their weapons and saluted as O'Neill and Jackson walked out.

"General O'Neill, doctor Jackson, the President is expecting you. If you'll follow me." Said an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent just past the four navy seals.

"Lead the way." O'Neill said straightening his tie.

The two men were surrounded by a group of agents and the SHEILD agent who was dressed in a skin tight dark navy cat-suit with the SHEILD logo on the arm, marching them through the heavily reinforced tunnels beneath the White House. They were stopped by another security check point which used a modified Tok'ra Za'tarc detector which was used on the SHEILD agent, who identified herself as Agent Melinda May, and the agents and the two men as they passed through before entering into the lower levels of the brightly lit corridors of the actual building.

Once again the group was stopped just short of the oval office by several more agents the nine men that were stationed here were the last line of defence against anyone attempting to harm the President of the United States. Finally after this last checkpoint they were escorted into the oval office, with the guards leaving them and returning to their posts and leaving the security to the highly trained secret service agents and the SHEILD operative. "We're here to see the President, I understand that we are expected."

"Yes general. He is expecting you in the Presidential briefing room." Says the secretary just outside of the oval office.

"If you will follow me sir."

The secret service agent, who Jackson had learned called Hilling, escorted Jackson, O'Neill and May through the main doors of the 'core' of the White House. The walls and doors had been modified and replaced with Titanium-A armor, small force field generators and a life support system which made the oval office one of the safest places on the planet. The refits had been built into the White House within hours of the attack by Anubis, with a number of other political residences and major military bases within the allied countries had likewise recently undergone the same upgrades. Passing through the secretary offices of the President. Hayes however wasn't alone as he had called in a number of other "senior officers from all branches of the military and several governmental officials to hear the report coming in from the Heracles that had been sent on a raid against one of Ba'al's major shipyards. Gesturing to the gap left for them at the central table in the situation room, Hayes turned back to the newly installed sub-space communicator that was set up.

"Heracles, this is the National Command Authority, go ahead."

"Mister President. The raid on the enemy position was a success, in excess of forty percent of the expected enemy capitals and escorts under construction have been destroyed with a possibility of more destroyed or crippled within the detonation range of the surface station. The entirety of the anchorage has been destroyed including fuel tanks, munitions stores and glider bays. Tactical analysis is one hundred percent loss of the base and everything within a hundred kilometers."

"What were the casualties, colonel?" O'Neill asked worried that his enemies might use this against him.

"We lost eight Star Wolfs across the three squadrons. We managed to pick up five of the pilots, the rest were killed as their aircraft went up. I regret to inform you sir that flight lieutenant Childs and lieutenant colonel Taylor are among the casualties."

"Two more of the senior officers down." Vice-President Kinsey, earning an evil stare from O'Neill and May which would have killed him if they had been armed.

"The Heracles is returning now to earth as we speak Mr. President. We should be there within the next few hours."

"Well done colonel. We needed a victory and you have brought one home to the people of this planet. Let's hope that this will allow us the breathing room that we need to build up our own forces without risk of attack. Report directly to the SGC upon your arrival colonel. I want a full debriefing from you, your first officer and the senior surviving pilot of the fighter contingent." Hayes ordered. "Then report to general Hammond for redeployment."

"Understood Mr. President."

"White House out."

The screen blanked out as the President turned back to his officers and staff, all with grim smiles on their faces. Hayes more than most understood the facts of this war, one navy officer looked particular unhappy at the actions that they had been forced into this day. "Admiral Pilling, you have a problem?" Hayes asked noticing the troubled look on the admiral's face.

"In my opinion sir, this was has just escalated. I agree with this attack on principle, however this was just a single attack on a single naval station, from the intelligence that we've recovered from the downloads of the computers on the hulks still in orbit and general O'Neill's command indicates that this attack will only set them back a small amount of time."

"Time that we badly need," General Anderson, of the Army, said speaking up in support of O'Neill and the SGC, "with luck we will have a decent sized force before they can recover from the loss of so many ships and construction facilities."

"Yes with luck, we don't know just how many ships in reserve they have or how many slips that their shipyards that can be brought online, our intelligence wasn't totally conclusive on that, most of the Jaffa we've managed to question don't have that kind of information. I do however think that the ships we've destroyed both here and at Delmak, should hold them off as well, I just don't think that we have the time we wish we did, not with our forces as depleted as they are."

"He may be right Mr. President." Said O'Neill giving Kinsey a near Heart attack. "The Asgard won't be able to keep defending us continuously, they need the ships in orbit for their own reasons. Granted that the Asgard have sent us six ships to assist with upgrading our won defenses for as long as we need them but even then, they are rebuilding their civilization and if something happens they may well recall them."

The President sank back into his seat and surveyed the faces of the joint chiefs and senior advisors, before sighing as he looked to O'Neill and the only none-human in the room, commodore Hudson. "Alright I need answers and quickly, it's going to take time to gain the resources and equipment to begin construction of Drake, Nelson, Minerva and Prometheus type two class ships. What can we do to start building up our defenses?"

"We believe Mr. President that we have a decent amount of resources to hand we can use to build smaller ships that are just as powerful as the X-304 class we slated to start production before we met the Zentradi." O'Neill said nodding to Hudson as he passed a folder to the President, "The materials and electronics can be recycled and used to at least form the majority of parts for the design that the people at Area 51 have come up with, and we'll still need a certain amount of off world supplies."

"You are joking about this, right?" Hayes said looking at O'Neill and Hudson. "That is a graveyard gentlemen, not a resource pool."

"Sir, with all due respect sir, it's something which we can't pass up." Hudson said calmly having had this debate with the other leaders of the IOA, "There are billions of tons of refined metals what else that would be useful for any new designs or defense platforms that the design teams can come up with. The Acidalium class will be the first generation of dedicated system defense ships, the kind of thing which can be constructed fast and in numbers by any decent size slipway or aircraft manufacturing plant on the planet."

At this Anderson spoke up. "The commodore has a point sir, not to mention that we are at war now and none of our treaties encompass the Goa'uld Empire. Their fleet is now open salvage. We can remove the bodies from the ships and return them to their people in some way if you wish, but that fleet is a resource we can't afford to lose."

"I'm not comfortable with using those ships in that way. However I do admit it is a useful resource to have as a whole. How long before you can begin the salvage and reclamation operations."

"Within the next few days Mr. President, the construction can start a few weeks after we get the first wrecks out of orbit. The Acidalium class should be ready for production by then." Hudson said having worked out the majority of the logistics with the SGC and the other sections involved in the construction.

Hearing this O'Neill grimaced a little. "And as much as I hate to admit it sir, we are going to need to source out the design to any country that can build them be they allied or otherwise. If we try and keep this within the IOA then we won't have a chance of building up the force we need. In addition Mr. President we may need to source out the railgun designs and begin construction of new nuclear weapons to arm these ships."

"That's a tall order general. We are still limited to the size of the nuclear arsenal which we can legally create due to treaty limitations." Hayes said pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "We can release the vast majority of the land based warheads for conversion as a quick fix but it'll take time before we can begin to rebuild our stocks."

"Then we need to make it quick Mr. President, otherwise we won't have much to fight back with when we do build our ships. If that happens then we may as well roll out the red carpet and let the Goa'uld walk in because there will be absolutely nothing to stop them,"

-{[]}-

"Hello and welcome to this special report from CNN. I'm Julia Donovan." She smiled as her camera pulled back to show an unfamiliar room. "Currently I am sitting in the forward observation lounge on the Zentron starship ZSMF Archangel." Her camera man turned the camera to show a rugged, if young looking man in a white jacket with blue trim and a green turtleneck under it. "Joining me today for this special edition of !nside Access two months after the attack on Earth, is the commander of this impressive allied starship, commodore Kira Hudson. Commodore, welcome to the show."

Hudson smiled nervously into the camera, while wishing he could be anywhere else, even cleaning the main thruster exhaust manifolds, than talking to this reporter, but it was a condition of the deal for constructing their dry dock and upgrading the Prometheus. "Actually welcome to you Ms. Donovan, and your viewers, to the Zentron Macross Fleet's battlefortress Archangel." He said with the skill of fleet admiral Britai or high advisor Exedor proud.

Julia smiled, knowing that this one interview would make her the most popular reporter on the planet. Plus she had to admit that she found the man she was interview rather handsome and he just and he just radiated power. It was hard not to notice him when she'd first entered the room. He toward over her and his gray eyes seemed to draw her in. Though she instantly felt that the green collar of his uniform didn't suit his appearance and had found herself wondering what he would look like with a dark red collar instead. "Julia please, and thank-you commodore for allowing us to come on board." She said smiling as she paused as a way to lead into her first set of questions without it seeming planned to her viewers. "Actually, forgive my bluntness, but you seem a little young for your rank."

Hudson frowned slightly as he answered. "Unfortunately I was promoted following the death of most of the senior staff a year ago, along with a number of other crew during our jump to your galaxy."

"My condolences." She said meaning it, despite the fact that it was over a year in the past.

"Thank-you." He said as a slight smile appeared on his face, and Julia's producer told her to get him to smile more, and while he didn't know it yet, Hudson had just attracted a small following on Earth, due in no small part to his towering height and alien origins and one of the questions which had been sent in repeatedly was to ask if he was married or involved with someone, and getting him to smile would only enhance that attraction, and bring in more viewers as well.

"Now commodore, if you please, could you tell me a little about yourself and your ship."

Hudson nodded slightly as he started speaking, "The Archangel, is a Super Dimensional Fortress type II Macross class battlefortress which is designed to serve in a multitude of roles, from combat, to first contact and mass rescues. As such at full complement she holds a crew of 35,000 split one to four between officers and enlisted personnel."

"And what is her current crew compliment?" Julia asked from the list of questions she had to try and ask, from the senior commanders of several of the allied nations, as well as a ton of scientific questions from the scientific community worldwide. Current crew size was on the less critical list, but still something that the military forces around the globe wanted to know.

"I'm afraid that's classified for now." Hudson said as he tried not to smile too much as he already suspected what information that Julia had been told to inquire about. "Though it is at slightly less than standard for a ship of this class, and our ability to maintain and defend the ship has not been compromised."

Julia smiled at the diplomatic answer, and her opinion of the commodore went up a few notches as she realized he wouldn't be an easy nut to crack, and she enjoyed a challenge. "So tell me about yourself then commodore. Where is it that you are from?"

A frown crossed Hudson's forehead as the memories of what had happened during the war back home, came flooding back. "I was from an orbital colony called New Hibernia, which had a population of around three thousand who had left Zentron following the second Robotech war." He paused not wanting to go into detail about the truth of why his people had left the Zentradi Earth in their home dimension.

"And what's your home like now?"

"An orbiting grave yard and debris field." Hudson said with an unreadable expressions, but the pain in his eyes told Julia that this was a hard subject for him to talk about. "It was destroyed during the Disruptor war."

"The Disruptor war?" Julia had seen mention of it in the information she had been sent as background research, but it lacked any real detail.

Hudson looked down as he remembered the horrors he'd seen on Eden Prime, in the battles both in orbit and on the surface, and the news of the death of his people. "Yes in twenty-three seventy three the Disruptors declared war on the ESUN and our allies the Zodiac Republic, one of our closest allies. The Hansa Imperial Star Empire joined the war two years later when one of their Senators was killed returning from a diplomatic trip. The war lasted for nearly ten years and we only barely managed to survive." He looked away as the memory of his dying commander and the promise that he had made as she died in his arms, came forward in his mind. "I spent most of the war trapped behind enemy lines after the ship I was on was destroyed over a planet called Eden Prime."

"I'm sorry to hear that." She paused, a little unsure of how to continue. "But judging from the fact that you and your ship are here now, I would assume that your forces won the war."

Hudson smiled at the reporter's choice of words as he answered. "I thought you knew not to assume Ms. Donovan," Julia smiled a little in response, "but yes, I guess you could say that we won. Though it was more that our enemy's leadership was trapped and cut off from reinforcements than us out-gunning them and winning the majority of the battles." He paused as the memories of the war, and what was lost, came back once more. "Anyway, that was several years ago and the ESUN is healing, slowly."

Julia nodded, glad that the subject hadn't ended the interview and quickly changed the subject. "So how did you and your ship arrive in our solar system?"

Hudson used the console in front of him and brought up an image of a large, black cube on the holographic display in the center of the table. He'd realized that the local races lacked even the most basic of vocal command systems for the most part, so he had decided to avoid using the system in front of them too much. While it wasn't a critical issue, they needed to have a few tricks up his sleeve. "The Prometheans."

"How… how big is that ship?"

Hudson looked at the cube and had to fight the urge to get angry. "Computer, show the cube in relation to the Archangel." The image of the cube moved to one side as a smaller ship appeared beside it. "While the SDF type II, of which as I stated earlier the Archangel is a member of, have an overall length twelve thousand meters, the Promethean's standard Saratoga type 3 cube is a perfect cube with each dimension being fifty kilometers with an internal volume of 125,000 cubic kilometers."

Julia audibly gasped at the size of the cube, it could swallow the whole of New York with ease, and somehow she suspected that its weapons were beyond scary. "Why… why did they attack?"

"The Prometheans believe in improving themselves through the forceful assimilation of other cultures and using the acquired technology to improve both their ships and their selves. They are a cybernetic race that are connected through a group conscious."

"How powerful?" Julia asked almost in a whisper before gulping, not really wanting to know the answer, but her producer had told her to ask through her ear piece.

"The first battle against them happened just over 7.8 light-years from the Zentron homeworld, where Macross Fleet command deployed fifty vessels of various classes including two Macross III class dreadnought and several prototypes, to stop the Prometheans from assimilating Zentron." Hudson paused as he accessed the files via his table interface, the Saratoga type cube vanished and another image was displayed on the screen behind the pair. "This is the aftermath of the very first ship which arrived on the scene two hours after the battle."

While Julia knew nothing of Zentron vessels, using the image of the Archangel as a base she was able to identify hundreds of pieces of debris. "How bad?" she asked clearly shocked.

"Forty-nine ships and their respective fighter wings destroyed with the loss of all hands, a quarter million personnel and civilians all died in an attempt to stop just one Saratoga type cube."

"Good god!" Julia stared at the image of all the floating debris and the aftermath of the attack for a full minute, in an attempt to comprehend such a disaster.

"I'll arrange for all non-sensitive or classified information on the Prometheans, our various battle and encounters with them, and our relevant details to be made available to all the relevant agencies later today, it will be up to them what, if anything, to release to the general public." Actually the IOA had already been given the data months ago, but were beyond scared when they had been confronted that the Replicators could actually become even remotely like the Prometheans. Hudson had gave the information to them in the hope it would force them to start working together more incase such a threat existed somewhere within this dimension. He pushed a button and the recording of the battles for sector one and Lantea came up.

Julia stared at the recordings of the various Promethean ships, Cubes and the truly massive form of a Key class in various battle shrugging off attacks by Zentradi, and other ships which she didn't know, like they were flies. She even watched as a ship that looked like the Archangel turned into a giant looking robot and began to fire a massive beam before being destroyed by a cube with only a short blast of its weapons.

"How have you managed to survive against such odds?" She asked, her producer hadn't spoken at all since the images of the first attack had been shown, he was obviously as shocked by these images as she was.

"Luck, hard work and a ship named Macross." Muttered Hudson with a slight smile as the MACO behind the film crew suppressed a laugh at the really old Macross Fleet joke about the ESMF Macross, before Hudson shut down the display screen returning it to the seal of the ESUN, which had been modified to have the standard lettering be written in Zentron. "But I doubt that you came up here to hear about our enemies…" He said leaving the sentence hanging as Julia took a moment to compose herself.

"Indeed." She said looking at her notes for her prompts she'd been put off badly by the images of the Prometheans, and the ease with which they had swatted aside the Macross Fleet vessels. Considering what she had seen of the ship when she had come aboard and in the research information, she could barely begin to comprehend the power of the Prometheans and other enemies of the ESUN, after being on the Prometheus when rouge NID agents had stolen it with a Goa'uld. "Can you tell me about your crew?"

"What would like to know?"

"Well what races are present in your crew?"

Hudson pondered how to provide a breakdown of the crew without giving the out actual numbers. "Well Julia, around sixty percent of the crew is Zentradi or has Zentradi ancestry. We also have a large contingent of Trojan's, Invid and Hansa personal. There are also a smaller number of Drajon's and Deltan as well."

"I'm a little confused, aren't the Hansa your enemy?"

Hudson tried not to smile at how obvious the question was. "Not exactly, while the Hansa Imperial Star Empire and ZSUN aren't exactly enemies, we aren't exactly on a first name basis either." Julia nodded in understanding. "They arrived here during the same battle that proceeded our arrival in your galaxy."

"You seem comfortable enough with them on your ship, isn't that a major security breach?"

"Yes it would be normally," He concluded, "but the only other options would have been to either space them or lock them in ships brig. Neither option was worth the effort when we arrived." He smiled at the mental image of a certain Imperial locked in the bridge that came to mind, or how much spacing him would please a few other Imperials and thus might be worth the effort. "I also worked closely with a number of them during the war when our two governments were allied."

"Ok, so moving on. In what ways does your galaxy differ from our own?"

"Well Julia…" Hudson started only to be interrupted by the ships address system. "Bridge to commodore Hudson." Came the voice of lieutenant Welsh. "Forgive me Ms. Donavon." He said as she gave a brief nod before her camera man moved to the window to take a shot of the Earth with some of the various fighters patrolling in orbit, as well as the Minerva class Minerva, floating nearby. "This is Hudson."

"Sorry to bother you sir," Welsh said, meaning that Dvorak was probably off reassuring a certain executor moron or threatening the repair teams to work faster. "but we have an issue. I'd recommend that you come to the bridge."

Hudson sighed, this time two years ago he had wondered what it would be like to command a whole battlefortress cut off from the rest of the fleet, now all he wanted was to go back to being the gun-sight commander and Fleeter security chief shooting at the baddies. "Very well lieutenant. I'm on my way," he replied as he turned to face Julia. "I'm sorry Ms. Donovan but I'll have to cut this interview short, duty calls."

"I understand commodore, but would it be possible to get a recorded tour of your ship as this isn't a live broadcast."

Hudson paused for a second, then he pressed the intercom, for the ship wide channel. "Hudson to crewman Chambers."

There was a short pause before the person in question answered. "Yes sir."

"Can you come to the forward observation lounge to give Ms. Donovan and her group a tour of the ships none critical areas, including a sim-deck and the Little White Dragon."

"Yes sir on my way." She replied before closing the comm.-link, as he returned his attention to face Julia. "Again my apologies but duty calls." Julia nodded in understanding having interviewed several members of the military in the last two months as Hudson exited the conference and headed for the bridge leaving Julia and her crew with her MACO guard while they waited for crewman Chambers. After a few moments he arrived at a transport tube which would take him to the command tower before he could take a lift up to the bridge. "What have you got lieutenant?" he asked as he waved the MACO guarding the hatch to stand down as he entered.

Welsh turned from the tactical station, having chosen not to take 'The Chair', and walked to the tactical situations display halfway between the tactical and flight-ops stations. As the ship was used for both ground and fighter operations, it had a large multi-purpose display stood in an alcove behind the two stations with various readings from engineering, tactical and flight-ops. In the last five years that Hudson had been on the ship, with the last one before the jump as the gun-sight commander and fleeter security chief, he had only seen it used three time.

"One of the recon parties is late checking in." Welsh stated as an image of the outer solar system appeared on the display. "The Yamato, Prometheus and Minerva have all tried to contact them, but no response." She said as the screen zoomed in on the area around Pluto, it continued zooming in until it showed a trench in the northern hemisphere. "they reported that they were moving into investigate some strange readings coming from Charon, when we lost contact with both the Ghost drones that where escorting a pair of Starmax's."

"How long ago was that?" Hudson asked as he studied the display.

"We lost contact twenty minutes ago and contacted general Hammond immediately, though his office said he was in a meeting and wouldn't put us through." Welsh said bringing up an audio file with a simple repeating message. "We received this message on the VHF subspace band, around five minutes ago."

"Code Omega. Code Omega. Code Omega."

Hudson clenched his fists, digging his nails into the palm of his hand cutting them with his anger. "Get me Hammond on the comm's. Now!" He said through gritted teeth.

"And if he's still busy sir." Welsh asked walking back to the tactical station to avoid the death glare that was coming from her commanding officer.

Hudson marched to his seat, the veins in his neck visibly clear. "Then beam O'Neill directly to the bridge. So. I. Can. Talk. To. Him!"

Welsh started to open a channel to homeworld command, when another signal came in. "Incoming signal from the SGC."

"On screen," He almost spat.

On the screen a rather tied, and exhausted looking general O'Neill appeared. "Greetings commodore. I'm calling about…"

"The missing patrol, yes sir I was just about to call you. I'm requesting that SG1 be sent up as none of my people can read let alone understand Alteran."

"And why do you need them?" O'Neill asked sending a silent signal to Harriman to have SG1 gear up.

"Well, if this is what I think it is we may have a way to increase the size of your fleet for the next to no cost."

"That's got me sold." Said a new voice on O'Neill's end, causing him to turn and see President Hayes. "A politician never turns down something that is next to or is free." Hayes said chuckling at the small joke.

"Yes sir Mr. President." O'Neill and Hudson replied. "We'll have SG1 depart right away."

"I can have an Argo outside the mountain in fifteen minutes."

"It will take them at least that long to get geared up, knowing Jackson, never mind the surface or outside the mountain's entrance and , and the landing pad." O'Neill said as Hayes, the Joint Chiefs and the core members of the IOA were lead up to the briefing room by an airman in dress blues.

"Very well." Hudson said since he could see that he was interrupting something important at the SGC. "Have them meet the Argo topside in thirty minutes, or they will have to walk to Charon." Jokingly.

The signal cut and Hudson slammed his fists into his armrest, breaking the small console built into it in the process.

-{[]}-

"Hanger reports that the Argo with SG1 on is aboard and secure." Reported a crewman from the lower level of the bridge.

"Thank-you D'Arag." Hudson said turning to face Cochrane, "lieutenant Cochrane I want a full scan of the system, if these Alteran's left an outpost on Earth and it identified a station in the outermost regions of the system, who know what else they've left in system. Newman set course for the outer system full sub-light." Hudson ordered as SG1 walked in with major Sisko escorting them onto the bridge.

"Sorry to keep you waiting commodore." Carter said as she took her first look around took her first look around the bridge properly since the meeting which had proceeded the upgrade to the Prometheus.

"Don't worry it's just that I've only ever heard of a code omega twice and both times it was trouble." Hudson said, calmly, but holding the arms of his chair which were bending them up with anger. "Each time it meant problems for the system it was declared in."

"How bad where they?"

Command made use of Nova bomb's." Dvorak said shocking SG1 who had read up on the weapons used by the Zentradi and their Hansa allies.

"Sir, I'm picking up multiple signs of multiple dry docks, mining sites, manufacturing facilities on the third moon of the first gas-giant in the system." Said a comm-scan officer from the lower level of the bridge.

"How old?" Asked both Jackson and Cochrane at the same time.

"Scan show it to be somewhere in the region of five and ten thousand years old, same age as the outpost planet side, sir."

"Ok dispatch two Starmax's with laser R.A.T.s in the hold with Ghost escort to investigate the site." Hudson ordered.

"Aye sir." Said the flight-ops officer filling in for captain Hill.

"ETA to recon 319's last known location is ten minutes sir." Newman said from the helm, glad to be moving again and not just sitting in orbit or combat.

As the ship got underway SG1 and the command group to plan for when they arrived at Charon. "I don't get how we could have missed something as a large complex as what we've just found on Ganymede." Said Carter as she looked over Welsh's shoulder at the data coming in from the Starmax in route to investigate the site. "I mean we've sent probes out there since the 1970's."

"Well from the data we've discovered in the outpost in Antarctica, this supposed station and the complex where buried in a nondescript section of the database. In fact we only found out about the Charon station thanks to major Sheppard when he sat in the control chair, it is possible that the Alterans compartmentalized the information or that they took it for granted that everyone with a need to know already did." Answered Dvorak trying to calm Carter down.

"Indeed." Replied Teal'c in his normal mono-tone voice.

"Ok, up on arrival we'll hold at six hundred thousand kilometers and try to make contact with the recon team, hopefully the recon team had the Ghost's send the code omega as all other long-range communications are down." Said Hudson. "Let's pray that the case, as I don't want to explain to general's O'Neill, Hammond, Maynard and your father major, how we ended up killing their flagship team." Joked Hudson relaxing now that he knew that they had a new mission.

"Sir, the hanger deck reports that the Argo with the news crew from !nside Access has departed and they are secure." D'Arcy said earning a small smile and a sigh of relief from all of those on the bridge, even SG1 who had the odd run in the press over the years.

Breaking orbit the majestic form of the Archangel accelerated to full sub light, slicing through the vacuum of space like a great white shark. It would only be a short trip, but they always where these days. In minutes the Archangel crossed the distance which would take the rest of the fleet hours, and that just five years ago would have taken mankind decades to cross. Humanity had come so far in a few short years, from those first tentative steps through the gate to having interstellar capable space craft and plans being drawn up for a mission to the near-by Pegasus dwarf galaxy to locate the lost city of Atlantis was breathtaking, and Carter, Jackson and Teal'c had been there for every step of the way. What the next ten years would bring nobody knew, but SG1 wondered.

-{[]}-

"I understand, but I'm not willing to allow hostile countries access to the more advanced technologies that Blue Book has managed to develop over the last few years. Until they can prove that they are more trustworthy and friendly to the members of the alliance nations. I will not authorize the release of anything." Hayes said as he looked at the group of ambassadors sat in front of him in the Oval office. "The truth is that several of your countries are antagonistic to our allies and even your own populations. That kind of thing is not going to be tolerated for much longer, we have a hell of a lot more things to worry about in the way of problems with the Goa'uld than we do with the countries on this planet."

"But you have shared this information with the Russians, Chinese and the Japanese. The US has long been enemies of both the Russians and the Chinese, and both have been working with you to defend your interests." One of the ambassadors said in protest. "My president wishes to join with the defense force to allow our country to stay free."

"As we do, Mr. President. Our country has long been a friend of America since before the First World War. We woo would appreciate the chance to fight against these Goa'uld." Said the other.

"True, however both of your regions are currently undergoing severe upheaval and intense problems, and to allow any kind of advanced technology into the region which could destabilize what little order that has been kept. The fact is that not only are both of your countries aggressive to their own people with obvious human rights violations, of which both of countries used to adhere to, but you are also antagonizing to the members of the International Oversight Authority as it is. Without a clear confirmation that you will not decide to use this technology against our own people, I can't allow the US to release this technology, and I highly doubt that even if I was to approach the IOA with it would pass without a veto."

None of the ambassadors where too enthused by this turn of events. The problems that the IOA were having with manpower, materials and equipment should have meant that their countries would have been willing to allow them to join the IOA and to garner the technologies that had been created or discovered by these off world operations, they also knew that several of best scientist and military experts had been granted asylum for them and their families by the IOA in the last two months, at their own request, however neither government were willing to let this go.

"Mr. President," Stated the Iranian ambassador, "several of our best scientist and specialists have been abducted with their families by American agents, and yet even more seem to disappearing out of their very homes even while under protective custardy. The only way that it is possible is if the IOA is actively interfering. President Khatami understands that you need these people and we are only too happy to allow this, but it must be done through the correct diplomatic channels," he said, "our national boarders are there for a reason sir, the sovereignty of these people of Iran is a fact that many do not enjoy but we are free people and wish to serve and protect that freedom and this planet."

Hayes barely managed to conceal his grunt of disgust at the transparent lies that the other man was spewing. The actions of many of the governments represented by this mixed group of Middle Eastern, African and South American ambassadors were well documented by the intelligence services of the IOA and numerous independents worldwide. He knew if any of the groups got hold of the advanced technologies used by the fleet they would use them to not only crack down on the public in their own home nations, but would also attempt to take by force what they wanted even if it resulted in the deaths of a substantial number of their own people.

On the other hand, the IOA was not the be all and end all of the power on the planet, and resources were problematic to start with even the six core members of the IOA. However the decision had already been made by Hayes and the heads of state of the other powers that several of the more aggressive nations wouldn't be included within their sphere of influence.

"That is for the diplomatic teams to work out. I don't know anything about these 'kidnappings' of your people ambassador but I will find out. If there has been anybody who has been removed without their consent, then I will personally return them and their families along with the people that took them directly to your countries myself." Hayes was reaching the end of his tether. Things were starting to unravel quicker than he would have thought. "Gentlemen for the moment I think that we are at an impasse. I suggest that we need to take a break and reconvene later on this next week, perhaps then we can make some headway with this, thank-you all for coming."

Accepting that they were being dismissed the group of ambassadors left the room escorted by a trio of secret service agents who were waiting for them for the long and complicated walk back to the outside world. When the last agent closed the door behind him Hayes reached up and loosened his tie a little, while leaning back in his chair. The consent quibbling with the different nation blocks that had sprung up following disclosure who all wanted a piece of the pie was taking up more and more of his time, even with the vast majority of it had been foisted off on his staff and the ambassadors which he had managed to pull together from the SGC, it was starting to get increasingly difficult to keep everything straight.

His British, Chinese, Japanese and Russian counterparts had likewise been inundated by the countries within their spheres' of influence, both within Europe or had ties to their former colonial possessions. The IOA had continued to grow as the number of trusted allies had been brought into the fold, the majority of them being former members of the old British Empire or members of the later Commonwealth nations or protectorates of the British, while others had been long time allies that had finally been admitted to the IOA. Unsurprisingly, the European Union countries now involved in the war effort had grown from the nations of those that had been devastated in the eastern regions that had joined up in order to avenge their lost ones.

America's own military was in the slow process of disengaging and returning to the US from overseas postings or patrol routes, much was the same for the British, Chinese, Russian and Japanese Self Defense Force which where all returning home so that they could assess the capabilities that each nation could bring to bear.

"Mr. President, ambassador Goulden has arrived." Said an aide over the intercom to the Oval office.

"Show him in please."

The door opened again and Sir John Goulden walked in, and just through the door Hayes could see two members of the ambassadors own SO6 protection detail facing his own protection detail, having a staring contest at each other. Strolling in Goulden smiled at his friend as Hayes stood and met him by the two coaches in the middle of the room, shaking his hand and gestured to the twin sofas.

"So, Sir John, what are you doing here?" Hayes asked as he poured two drinks of scotch for him and his guest.

"I heard that you were meeting with a few of the more problematic block nations that have sprung up today, so I figured that her majesties government should lend you some support." Goulden said accepting the offered glass of scotch.

"Things going that bad over at the British embassy then?" Hayes said with a slight chuckle.

"Bustard huh?"

"I don't blame you as your government has most of Europe and the Middle-East knocking on your door, as opposed to us, Russia, China and Japan. Now that the French embassy has begun turning away ambassadors, it's you that is the more open of our allies out there." Hayes said. "Once we get the Germans and Dutch are up to speed we should be better off." Hayes said swirling his scotch a little, "How is the overall picture looking?"

"Sixteen of the major first and second world countries have signed on, in addition to the original members of the council." Goulden said, "More than a third of the UN have asked to join or are being pressured by their allies. The new South American coalition don't seem to give a damn one way or another. Basically only the UAE, North Korea and Argentina have been putting out feelers over what's happened. On the plus side we have upwards of a few hundred thousand more soldiers on our side."

"Enough to make up the losses we've taken so far."

"More or less yes, the biggest problem I can see is the training side of things. Her majesty's navy has enough cross trained personal to man another three Nelson class and a Minerva class. The next batch of personal will not be ready to for the next nine months to a year even considering that the member nations no longer have to hide what we are doing."

"The first batch of the class two Minerva's have begun construction along with the first squadrons of the new Acidalium class destroyers."

"So they classified them then?"

"Given the size difference and weapons load outs, calling them a destroyer seemed the best option, but I was in the Air Force not the navy," Hayes said grinning having seen the load outs for the ships and that they were smaller than the Prometheus spec-two. "They've begun melting down the debris from the ships in orbit, but even with the help of the Asgard and Zentradi, it's still going to take time to build the first batch. Once it's confirmed that they will work as advertised the new homeworld defense command will begin dissemination of the plans, but until then we need to continue the training and production of what we have."

"Well that's one of the things I came to tell you Mr. President, the damage to the Nelson wasn't as bad as first reported. Thanks to the worldwide disclosure the secrecy and materials which have been sent by Project Blue Book means that we've cut the amount of time she will be in dry-dock by three weeks. She will be able to rejoin the fleet by the middle of next week." Goulden said smiling having been on the ship for a tour when she was still under construction. "In fact the Starmax and Star Wolf squadrons' repairs are about week or two ahead, and new craft construction is three weeks ahead of construction also, but as you said we don't have enough supplies to outfit any more squadrons at all."

"That's an awful better than nothing. The Prometheus will be active within a week as well, but the real problems are the Korolev and Sun Tsu." Hayes said looking over at his guest. "They're not going to be space worthy anytime soon, in fact they won't be active for the next six months. The damage to their home grown systems is the worst of the damage taken, and will take the most time to repair before we can even think of fixing the damage to their hulls and more advanced systems."

"You want to sequester the supplies to a different shipyard?" Goulden asked shocked. "Our main slipway still has the Nelson on."

"I know, but I'm agreeing to Prime Minister Blaire's request for a transfer of equipment which was earmarked for our next Minerva class slipway to your government. The Isle of Man base has been authorized, correct."

"Yes, both the three slipways and the new Air Pad for the Starmax's and Star Wolves, but the slipway isn't even half complete."

"We need the ships Sir John, and I've decided that there is no space anymore for the politics of this situation. I'll deal with the problems this brings up later if I have to but we need a secure base. We'll make a deal with both Ireland and Iceland if we have to, although I dread to think what they'll want in return." Hayes said sighing as he looked at his friend. "The US has only four active slipways including the Prometheus ready and in use, if we can get another ship off the construction line at the same time as the rest then so much the better."

"You know Mr. President that the Japanese, Chinese and Russians are going to be ever so irritated by this."

"That's what I love about you Sir John, you have such a gift for understatement that it's unreal." Hayes joked. "Yes I know, but facing facts very few countries, including the European Union, can build their infrastructure to begin the construction of ships which we so desperately need, for now the six major countries involved in this project will continue with the buildup of the fleet with financial and resource help from the other countries."

"What are we looking at Mr. President? A full worldwide war production increase, even with every able hand on this planet and the more advanced technology we have access to?" Goulden asked with a raised eyebrow. "I don't see us winning this war, if what I've read from the translated documents is right then we are outnumbered ten to one. It only takes one of the Goa'uld capitals at sufficient velocity to kill one of ours and the new Acidalium class will be even worse off against the Goa'uld fleet."

"So what are we just going to give up?" A shocked Hayes said. "Have you being talking to my vice president?"

"Oh hell no, and he is a smuck how you let him on your election ticket is beyond me." Goulden replied just as stunned. "We give up and they'll take out their frustrations on the population at large. Technical superiority only goes so far, Henry, even with the assistance we've been given by the Asgard and the Zentradi. Oh that reminds me, admiral Hood has informed the British ministry of defense that one of the Asgard's engineers who was looking over at the Nelson has said that they'll be placing cannons similar to their own on all the active ships. It'll bring them up to par with the Prometheus in terms of fire power."

"Good, we will need the fire power." Hayes said leaning back. "Six billion people, Sir John. Six billion and we have less than one percent of that under arms across the entire planet, and even less than a hundredth of that number in any way affiliated with Project Blue Book or any of the subsidiaries which we've been using to build up our forces. Our ground troops and atmospheric pilots are in ready supply as are most of the scientists and personnel needed to put together colonies or outposts, but like everything it's going to take time to get any new personal up to speed to allow for any real form of fleet expansion."

"There's nothing we can do about it Henry, we always knew that holding back might cause problems a long time ago, but the IOA council agreed to keep it up under our hat's until something finally came up and bit us in the butt. You're right that we can't do it right now though, but we have the ability to hold this planet from enemy attack easily enough. The simple answer old friend is that we wait and build up, we wait until we can hit them then start doing it."

"Taking your cues from history I see."

"It worked for my father's generation during the Second World War so now we get to see if it can work for us. Oh we can send raids' if we want but to be honest we don't have even the slightest chance of winning this war in our current state. As far as we know there defenses will be on full alert now, and I highly doubt that even one of our allies ships could break through and do the kind of damage we're going to need bring them to the table. We are talking about psychopathic that think they are gods here, Henry. You think they'll just bow down if we tell them to even at the point of a gun?"

"Not usually no, but the thing is from what we can gather from their database there is something of a fifth column, of rebels which started about seven or eight years ago. What's more it seems that they have one of their own that's gained access to all of Anubis technology and foot soldiers."

Hayes considered his friends words, the majority of the religions on Earth were based on what had now been confirmed as powerful alien races, and not mythical beings that they were believed to be by stargate command reports that Hayes had read, confirmed that different religious pantheons where Goa'uld or other alien races in the guise of 'Gods', some even using the persona of Satan as a basis.

"I don't see us managing to persuade any of them that the Goa'uld are possibly behind their entire culture." Hayes said rubbing his eyes. "As you know the Jaffa are stronger than most of the humans in the galaxy, with a few exceptions. Even so the vast majority still believe that we're the enemy and that their boss is in the right."

"You think that one of them might try and launch a sneak attack?" Goulden asked, having not read some of the more highly classified files from the SGC.

"No I don't think so. It's not really the style of most of the Goa'uld and even if they were, most of the Goa'uld are like magpies and show no ingenuity when it comes to improving their stuff. No if anything they will fight each other over Anubis's stuff before they will try and attack covertly so as to not piss off the Asgard, after all why would we blame them if an asteroid was to hit the Earth."

"You sound like you've been thinking about this for a while, Mr. President."

Rubbing his eyes, Hayes stood up and walked back over to the small liquor cabinet he kept in the room, placing down the glasses he poured two more glasses of scotch before placing them on the table next to him as he passed the other to his guest, then began to wonder around the room really looking at it for the first time.

"I've been thinking about a lot of things old friend. This war could go either way for us at the minute. We have access to their secrets, technology and information in their ships computers, but considering the galaxy at large you have to wonder what the hell the Goa'uld will do if or when they start to use comparable tactics, from what we can gather they don't have any knowledge of holding actions, defense strategies' or snipping. Their tactics consist of sending in wave after wave of Jaffa until they either win or are over whelmed and defeated or killed." Hayes said, remembering what Teal'c had said in one of his earliest debriefings at the SGC.

"And if they do then we're in for a world of hurt, they may be fixated on using medieval tactics, but if they manage to work out even the basics of a modern defense strategies then we've lost." Goulden realized with a start. "I think we might be in serious trouble here. One planet against an empire that spans the galaxy, isn't good odds. Even if we managed to build one Minerva class per Ha'tak, if they put even a simple anti-air system on them then we are screwed from the get go."

"Exactly so you can see my problem, until now the Goa'uld have had no reason for too much in the way of exploration or rapid scientific evolution. Now they know that we're one world with weapons to hold off a fleet twice the size of that one. They'll also be expecting us to build up and to increase our own technological lead."

"Except that we can't without outside help. What help can we expect from our off world allies?"

"The diplomatic team has just returned from Hebridian and they have dispatched some supplies to help with our immediate problems and the Zentradi have begun construction of a number of orbital stations that they call SMAC which can double as hangers and space docks for the ships in the fleet." Hayes sighed with frustration as he rubbed his eyes in frustration, "Apart from that there is bugger all in the way of useful weapons or defensive measures along with the Alteran outpost and the science teams have a few leads on ways to improve our sensor and power systems, but that's it."

"Then we need to find something to help here otherwise by the time we managed to build up enough of a fleet it may as well be too late." Goulden said looking uncomfortable. "I know you don't want to go through to total war with this Mr. President, god knows that the prime minister doesn't want to murder an entire race for the actions of a few but what happens if we do try and sue for peace and they agree? What then? Allow them to come back around later and start another war, allow them to come around later and start another war, allow them to have free rain through our space as terrorists?"

"I don't know GOD DAMN IT!" Hayes shouted, as Goulden leaned back in his seat as Hayes deflated as his anger began to sub-side, "I'm sorry Sir John, and you didn't deserve that."

"I know you were having a bad week, I can't have helped I apologies."

"You didn't say anything that I haven't already thought about Sir John. We're in the middle of a war less than a year after I pulled the US out of the Middle East and now we're facing another idiot that thinks he can make us bow down and God knows what else is out there ready to bite us in the butt." Hayes said slumping back exhausted. "If I'd have known all this was coming I would never have gotten in to politics."

"You've only known about the project for what, eighteen months? The fact that nothing was said for the five and a half years before your administration, says something as well. You're doing as well as can be expected Henry. We're all under pressure here and god knows what we're going to go through before this is over."

"I know. I just hope that we're still here to see it."

-{[]}-

On the very edge of the solar system was Pluto, once classified as a planet, the reclassified as a micro planet, was nothing more than a life less ball of rock and ice orbited by its sole moon Charon. The Archangel having had to wait in orbit around Jupiter's moon of Ganymede for the Yamato which was carrying a dedicated science team to investigate the complex that they had discovered before moving to the edge of the solar system and was now sitting at six hundred thousand kilometers from the small ice and rock moon while they conducted scans for the missing recon flight. There was no energy signatures, no life signs and no signs of the recon team, in fact there was nothing but ice and rock. The Alteran's were it seemed very good at making things disappear, even themselves, so it came as no surprise to the crew of the Archangel or SG1 that looks could be deceiving.

"Scans are showing nothing commodore." Said Cochrane for his station at the back of the bridge.

"I expected as much." Said Hudson sighing, and tapping the comm-link button on his command chair, "Bridge to Echo 147, SG1 and Devil Squad you are clear to go."

Down on the hanger deck of ARMD two a single Argo launched through the opening that was protected by an atmospheric protection barrier and out into the cold unforgiving void of space. Not knowing what to expect both SG1 and Devil Squad where geared up for a recon in full air tight suits aboard the Argo outfitted for full combat recon, search, rescue and combat evacuation.

"Okay, once I'm within seventy-five thousand kilometers start scanning for the recon mission Doc." Said Welsh from the co-pilots seat behind Newman calling back to the cabin of the Argo.

Speeding away from its mother ship, Argo transport Echo 147 approached the 1200 kilometer planetoid which was Pluto's moon. Once they were within range Jackson began to scan the surface looking for the missing two Starmax transport bombers. Suddenly the sensors came alive with a mass of readings and the micro planet seemed to change in the view port out the forward cockpit windows. It wasn't a planet at all, but an artificially constructed celestial body.

"Um boss, I'm not in the driver's seat anymore!" Moaned Newman as the transport moved towards an opening which had appeared in the massive object. Approaching the gigantic opening a force field visibly dropped to allow the Argo on autopilot to pass through a hanger filled with numerous Alteran vessels, sitting at anchor like the sentinels of old that they were. Many of them seemed to be complete or nearly finished while others seemed to be either in various states of construction while even more looked to be under repair.

"This is amazing! It must be a giant shipyard!" Jackson practically shouted bouncing around like a hyper child on Christmas morning full of sugar.

Slowly the transport headed towards the upper portion of the massive hollow sphere and gently touched down on the landing pad across from the missing Starmax's and Ghost drones, after a few moments there was a bang on the rear hatch before it was lowered with everyone pointing their weapons at it.

"Easy folks," Said one of the pilots from the Starmax's. "I'm on your side, plus I think we just hit the jackpot." He said as another man walked up with the other pilot.

"Greetings citizens, I am Anoke. Your arrival is most welcome and much anticipated." Said the other man standing at the rear of the Argo, with a slight flicker, making Devil Squad and SG1 both realize that he was a hologram.

"Anoke, I am doctor Jackson of SG1, this is major Carter, Teal'c and Devil Squad. Are you a graphic representation of this facilities creator?" Asked Jackson.

"No doctor I am not. I am the stations automated command system. I am detecting an unknown warship within range of this facilities defense weapons array, and several more near Terra will you authorize the activation of the defensive system?" Asked Anoke innocently like a child.

"No, no, no, no, Anoke!" Everyone practically screamed, before Jackson said calmly. "That, that won't be necessary. The nearby ship and the others are allied with us." Stammered Jackson. Anoke processed that answer for several seconds before the display showing all of the Earth ships, Asgard and the Archangel changed to show them all labeled as friendly in Alteran underneath.

"Very well doctor. I was instructed by high councilor Moros to halt construction and repair of all ships in port as well as materials before Atlantis removed itself from the Terra system. Do you authorize me to continue the resumption of my duties?" Anoke asked curious.

"I think we would like to have a look at what you've got here first Anoke." Laughed Rockwell looking at a type of drone craft that looked like McCloud's Skybolt heavy combat bombing assault system crossed with an older model Thunderbolt.

-{[]}-

The Odyssey's refit and rearming had been a priority once the newly constructed weapons systems had been completed, it was a task which had been made quicker thanks to both the orbiting dry-dock of the Zentradi and the Asgard's mater creation technology on one of the Daniel Jackson class science ships that had been dispatched by Thor to help with Earth's recovery. Already her M10 'Isolde' 42cm triple cannon had been replaced with a new 50cm triple cannon railgun for her main solid armament.

Ammunition and spares had also been transferred aboard the Odyssey as they had been constructed although with heavier armament and larger type ammunition the magazines had to be reduced to allow for the changers. Requests to allow the reduction of the missile capacity had fallen on deaf ears with many of the IOA and its people convinced that the nuclear weapons should be left in place as a deterrent. Both normal and heavy Tungsten and the new more powerful 'Lucifer' rounds had been loaded with a four to one ratio. The more powerful but difficult to construct Potassium-Naquadah rounds were still being constructed in small numbers to supply the active ships and new surface to orbit defense guns and orbital stations which where springing up around the world.

"Odyssey this it 'The Mountain' be advised that we are tracking fifteen separate hyperspace tracks coming your way. ETA five minutes at current speed." Came the voice of sergeant Ferrus from the SGC using the codename for the base in case somehow their comm-links had been breached.

"Mountain this is Odyssey," Responded the newly minted colonel Emerson. "We've got them, requesting reinforcements."

"Daedalus copies and is inbound at this time colonel. We're not receiving any communications at all. Hold one." Ferrus said as someone passed along some more information to the young sergeant. "Odyssey we have confirmation of the multiple Tel'tak and Alkesh class sized vessels, no heavy warships detected trailing in their hyperspace wake."

"Copy Mountain, we're reading them." Emerson reported mentally switching into combat mode. "Battle stations set level two throughout the ship."

Around the bridge the various officers began barking out orders as the alert klaxon bleared and the three alert fighters launched from the ship to form up with the fighters from the Daedalus, as she and two of the Asgard ships vectored in for long range fire support if needed. Both Tau'ri readied their weapons and loaded up anti-ship missiles, and all the nearby fighter squadrons which had been repaired since the attack by Anubis.

"Unknown vessels are slowing, sir." Reported the comm-scan officer. "They'll dropout of hyperspace rather close to us, well within range for both of us and them."

"See if you can pin down their exact drop location and feed that data to tactical and aim all weapons into that sector."

"Aye sir."

A few seconds later, the approaching cluster of signatures reverted to normal space just over one hundred million miles from the two Minerva class, two Asgard ships and around forty Star Wolves, Thunderbolts and Starmax, the Alkesh sized escorts sat to the flanks of almost two dozen smaller ships of a similar design. The fighters from the two Tau'ri ships closed on the warships as the handful of Thunderbolts that had stayed behind from the Archangel and Starmax's swung around to cover the flanks.

Aboard the Odyssey information scrolling across the overhead screens informed Emerson that his ships new Isolde railgun and Tristen cannon's had deployed and locked onto the incoming ships. More scans showed evidence that no known weapons of the usual weapons or defenses were active nor were they making any attempt to move from their position in front of the fleet while the fighters actively buzzed them at close range to the unknowns now that they could make out the seams of the hull plating, it was odd however that there was no Goa'uld signals coming from the fleet of unknown ships.

High above the assembled fleet a second group of ships dropped out of hyperspace, this group of three ships where bigger than the first group's escorts and where led by a cruiser size ship around the size of an Ha'tak class, but its more graceful lines were a far cry from the pyramid ships that the Goa'uld use or the designs of the Tau'ri's own small space fleet. The entire group came to a stop a thousand miles from the Tau'ri fleet with their bows pointed towards the Odyssey.

"That's a big ship." Muttered someone on the suddenly quiet bridge, which had lowered into its reinforced and armored alcove.

"Major?"

"No active weapons or defenses detected colonel, but if these readings are right she's around half the size of the Archangel and could easily take on a dozen Ha'tak's or three of our own Minerva class with ease sir."

"Incoming transmission from the big one sir." Said the communications officer from behind Emerson to his left, interrupting the Odyssey's XO at the tactical station. "It's coming through in English."

"Patch it through." Emerson ordered.

"Warship Odyssey this is captain Merakin of the Hebridian Alliance escort ship Kobayashi Maru. I believe that we are expected and are carrying a few things which you might be interested in, sir." The man smiling on the large forward view screen, his almost human like face belying his status as a Serrakin. "Tell doctor Jackson that his request has been approved by the Hebridian council."

"Kobayashi Maru this is the Odyssey, colonel Emerson commanding. As you are no doubt aware we have scanned your ships, would you care to explain why your ships are carrying so much refined material into our solar system?"

"Of course colonel. The Hebridian Alliance has agreed to the terms of the treaty that has been offered to us, these ships are carrying the first shipments of materials we have to trade with your world, we are also aware of the attack upon your world and we are here to help."

"That's a nice gesture captain, what's the catch?"

The Serrakin chuckled at Emerson's words. "I understand your reluctance to trust us sir. If it was you who was within weapons range of my planet in a warship with cargo holds full of unknown goods, I would more than likely shoot first and ask questions once all the photons had fired. However as we are not, I shall have my ships maintain position well away from your world and its moon until either doctor Jackson or general O'Neill can verify the reason for our presence within your space."

"Alright then, standby. Odyssey out." Emerson said as he turned to face his comm-officer, nodding to her to switch the channel back to the SGC. "Mountain, did you copy all that?"

"Affirmative sir, we're tracking down general O'Neill or any other member of SG1." Ferrus's voice came from the overhead speakers. "We know that doctor Jackson, Teal'c and major Carter are off-world on the Archangel investigating something… found him. Sir, general O'Neill is currently looking at the specifications of the new Acidalium class in the Nevada shipyards."

"That was fast, sergeant."

"It's my job sir, master Bra'tac is with him."

"Thank-you sergeant, we'll bring them up. Odyssey out." Emerson said as the channel closed, and he turned to the scanner operator behind him since he was facing the communications station. "Lock on to their locator beacons and bring them up major."

"Aye sir." Grant replied, knowing what the colonel was planning to do to the general.

A second later the normal blueish white light of a transporter beam filled the reinforced command bunker appeared and disappeared as the two man appeared in front of the bridge crew. Once the momentary disorientation had cleared and they realized where they were O'Neill turned to Emerson.

"My apologies for bringing you up general, but we have a situation up here." Emerson said pointing to the main viewer which was locked onto the Hebridian ships.

"That's fine general." O'Neill blinked as he looked at the small fleet still being buzzed by the numerous Star Wolves. "Hum, what seems to be the emergency?"

"We've got a few ships here that have just dropped out of hyperspace, they claim to represent the Hebridian alliance and are carrying supplies that we have apparently said that we will trade for sir, and they have asked for you by name."

"Thank-you colonel, looks like I need to kick someone in the butt." Jokes O'Neill, causing several of the crew to snigger, "I was under the impression that everyone who needed too had been informed, open the channel."

"Comm's, re-open the channel to the Maru."

"Aye sir." The comm-officer said as he re-opened the channel, "Channel open general." As the forward view screen returned to the view of the Serrakin male on the command deck of the Kobayashi Maru.

"This is general O'Neill, to whom am I speaking?"

"Ahh, general O'Neill sir. I'm captain Merakin of the Hebridian space forces, I believe that you have been expecting our arrival."

"Thank-you captain, I'm sorry for the slight mix-up, but the recent attack and the damage it caused has made communications between our forces problematic at best. I'm assuming that your presence here means that the treaty we proposed has gone through."

"Yes. The treaty is being ratified by the council as we speak, the generous offers of technology exchanges that your people offered to President Hagan has been accepted. The cargo holds and cargo ships in this fleet are packed to the bulk heads, and the cargo ships are ready to pick up the first shipments which we have been promised after they have off-loaded their own supplies, oh also we are going to be leaving three of our escorts and two supply transports as part of the deal." Merakin said smiling. "And I will be staying in system with the Maru to act as a command ship for our forces for as long as you need us, the rest of the ships will be returning to the homeworld with the remaining cargo ships."

"That's generous of your alliance captain. I'm sure that doctor Jackson told me that it wasn't in the treaty that he hashed out on your homeworld."

"It wasn't, but citizen Finn made a very strong argument that the ruling council decided that it was in our best interests to at least assist the Tau'ri with the defense of their world. I mean after all if the rumors are true and the Asgard like you then there has to be something about your people and planet. If you can transmit us the details for where you want us to land, we shall off-load the cargo and pick up our payment." Merakin said diplomatically, "Our crews are the best at what they do so they'll be quick, after all we don't want to alarm your general population any more than they already are do we?"

O'Neill laughed a little at that, thinking it might be nice to let the captain and Kinsey be in the same dark room. "Thank-you captain, I'll have the SGC send up the landing coordinates as soon as possible." O'Neill said quickly as his mind started to picture Kinsey in a dark room with Chaka beating him to a bloody pulp. "Your effort is greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help."

"I'll admit that you Tau'ri are a strange bunch, but I'm not complaining. We shall await landing instructions. The screen switched back to the view of the Hebridian ships, leaving O'Neill feeling slightly relieved that something had gone right this week.

"General sir?"

"Colonel?"

"If you don't mind my asking sir, what was all that about?"

"Help colonel, help from some friends."

-{[]}-

A month after exploring the Alteran space station the size of a moon on the edge of the solar system the Archangel had ferried SG1 back to earth, and now the team, Welsh, Campbell and Dvorak where sat listening to one of the members of the almost ready to deploy Atlantis Expedition, Rodney McKay, as he explained about what they had found and how they were upgrading the both the Archangel and their own small fleet using the resources on hand at the station and in the mining station discovered on Ganymede.

"… and with the assistance of the Alteran shipyards AI we have made leaps and bounds above the current capabilities of all the ship classes in the fleet, and have even repaired the Archangel to what her chief engineer says is just of the production line status. Combining both the Zentradi and data we have accessed we have found a way to use the best of both. Unmatched firepower, unequaled defensive capabilities and unparalleled power generation, this new class of vessel, will be similar to that of the Archangel, will create a paradigm shift in balance of fleet power, in our little corner of the galaxy. The embarked number on this class has risen, compared to that of the Minerva classes compliment of 60 Starmax and 120 Star Wolf's, to 120 Starmax and 240 Star Wolfs as well as a new class based off the scans that the stations AI took of both the Starmax's in the initial recon flight and the Argo that SG1 and Devil Squad used to enter the station. Imagine if you will a Minerva class ship intermixed with an Asgard O'Neill class and a bit of the Archangel thrown in for good measure." Said McKay to the assembled members of the IOA council and the heads of the military in the core members of the IOA.

"Is he always this smug?" Asked the British representative in hushed tones.

"He sure is." Whispered O'Neill back, getting a small smile from Cater.

Smug as McKay might be, the design which he had created after only three days of coffee fueled of work promised to be an amazing design. With everything performing as promised the new vessel was easily more powerful than anything that the Goa'uld had created or dreamed of in their wildest dreams.

Her hull was composed of a carbon, Trinium A and Naquadah composite. This was the strongest blended alloy known to the Zentradi. Her firepower was made up of six 'Gottfried' type two 225 cm high energy plasma beam cannons mounted around her forward section, 38 vertical missile launchers within the main body, 16 infer red galaxy anti-air class lasers, 18 photon cannons, 34 CIWS rail guns two M10 52cm triple rail cannons, two Tannhäuser positron siege cannons and an armory of stocked with 2500 Wombat anti-ship missiles and 1000 of the new Dispar anti-air suppression and interception missiles rounding out her armament would make her one of the most heavily armed beasts of the space ways. The same type of Asgard hyper drive used on the Prometheus was being fitted along with an Asgard shielding system. Powering all of this was ten neutrino ion generation plants and three naquadah enhanced reflex reactors.

Design changes had also been given to the Star Wolfs, a second naquadah reactor had been added to them to power both there shields and a new fighter grade turbo plasma cannons.

"Asgard ships possess the ability to travel from Earth to their homeworld in the galaxy of Othala in under a day, and once the first of this new class is complete we will also. These capabilities are in direct proportion to the mass increase of the ship through. This class will be roughly three times the size of a Minerva class and after intensive simulations we have found that the design is without fault. These simulations have also shown that a single ship of this class could, in theory, could go toe-to-toe with the Archangel and have a ninety percent chance of victory with high expectation of success with only moderate amount of damage."

The IOA members began to question how long it would take to put the design into production, they were less than pleased when they were informed that both general Hammond, of the newly created homeworld defense command, and general O'Neill had already ordered construction of the design three weeks ago. It had also been decided to make use of what the shipyards AI had said were Magellanic class heavy cruisers, Eternal Vigilance class long range surveillance ships to use patrolling the solar systems of the Protected Planet's Treaty, and Fingers of Dawn class supply and maintenance ships would be kept in system to help with the construction of the orbital defense facilities and dry docks, freeing up the Minerva's for the mission to Atlantis which was slated to depart within the next few months. The new class was destined for use outside of friendly territory, and as a command ship for a small battle group.

Nothing that the Goa'uld have ever built could compare in any way to them in terms of raw firepower, and with a total build number for the first batch of this class set at twenty it would allow the earth to project their power if needed, like the aircraft carrier had for America during World War Two and beyond.

As far as the name for this new class, general O'Neill was disappointed as he was once again as they were to be called the Mississippi class dreadnought.

-{[]}-

"Each chevron tells the gate to look for a point in space, six points to locate another location in space with a seventh used to plot a course within this galaxy, and in order to make a lock on a gate outside of our galaxy we need an eighth chevron, so we won't actually know if we can make a connection to the gate on the other end until we can establish a lock." Jackson says walking into the gate control room explaining the basics of gate travel to one of the new scientist that had joined the stargate program following disclosure, as he approaches doctor Weir who is watching the chaotic activity taking place in the embarkation room.

"Are we there yet?" Asks general O'Neill as he comes down the stairs that lead to the main briefing room and his office, clapping his hands together.

"We're just waiting on McKay and Siler."

-{[]}-

In the main power room which fed the main feed for the stargate, which despite being upgraded to run off three naquadah generators and a single Vibranium naquadah hybrid arc reactor so as to cut the power requirements for the base and provide a measure of independence following the meeting with the Zentradi, sergeant Siler is putting the finishing touches to the cradle which had been created based off of the scans which the teams had taken of the ZPM housing unit on the chair in Antarctica to boost the amount of power available for the gate.

"That should make it work now sir." Siler says as he stands up closing the fuse box on the wall he had been working on.

"Ok sergeant, let's give it a shot. It should light up when it senses the connection to gates power grid." McKay explained as he removed the ZPM from the case which it had been transported in from the outpost and inserts it gently into the cradle before pointing to Siler who crosses his fingers and throws the switch for the circuit breaker for the gates power feed. After several long seconds, which the ZPM interface programs runs an internal diagnostic working out how to interface safely with the primitive conversion cradle that it was currently placed into, before it lit up. "Oh I'm good!" McKay says smiling not realizing that it was the ZPM that had done the hard work.

-{[]}-

"Could I have everyone's attention please?" Weir call's out as she fixes her pack onto her back. "In the next few minutes we will attempt to make a connection to the Atlantis gate. We have been unable to predict how much power this is going to take, therefore once we have established a connection, we're not going to risk shutting down the gate." She said as she stands on the bottom of the ramp that lead to the in active stargate having moved from the control room so that she could address the expedition, as Jackson stands up from the controls for the stargate in the control room and stands next to O'Neill as the pair look into the embarkation room as Weir continues. "We'll send a recon drone through to check for viability and life support and then go. Everything in one hit. Now, every one of you has volunteered for this expedition and you represent the very best that this planet has to offer. You are the world's best, and in light of the adventure we are about to embark on, you are the bravest. I hope that we return someday having discovered a whole new realm for humanity and our Zentradi cousins to explore, but as you all know, it will be at least six months to a year before any of us might be able to return home. I'd like to offer you all this one last chance to withdraw your participation from the mission."

Several of the members of the expedition looked around at each other, but nobody moved to leave. Weir smiled as she looked out at the assembled group then nods to the technicians in the control room. "Begin the dialing sequence." She orders as she looks up into the control room.

After several long seconds in which the military members of the mission finished checking their equipment, the gate locked in its eighth symbol for only the second time in the history of the stargate program, but the first time that the SGC had actually planned to dial another galaxy, causing a cheer to ring out from the group in the embarkation room and a collective breath to be released from the Weir, O'Neill and Jackson.

"Lieutenant send the drone." Ordered O'Neill and the machine gently lifted off its transport rig and floated up the ramp and through event horizon of the active stargate, two seconds later and three million light-years away the mark three mobile analytical laboratory probe, or M.A.L.P. for short, emerged out the other side into a large two level chamber.

"Telemetry coming in now sir."

"There is a breathable atmosphere, scans are showing that there is an energy barrier of some kind is holding back the water, however energy readings from the power generators are bare minimum levels and the shield is at less than ten percent." Said McKay as he looked at the MALP's on the screen to the side having come to the control half way through weir's speech.

"So if we go…" Weir asks unable to turn away from the visual's being transmitted by the MALP as it moved up to a window showing the city sitting on the edge of an underwater cliff that looked as deep as the grand canyon while the depths of the ocean where being held back by the shield.

"The shield will collapse and the ocean will flood the city. Yes." McKay said sighing in frustration, looking with the others in the control room at the visual feed from the MALP.

"Then I'm going to…" Started O'Neill before being interrupted by McKay.

"I wouldn't be so hasty." McKay said glancing at the readings that the MALP. "I've been looking over the operating systems of the ships which we found at the Charon station. I'm sure that I may be able to disengage the clamps that are holding the city to the sea floor and raise it up to the surface."

"It can float?" Asks a technician monitoring the local air space and surface conditions shocked.

"It can fly." McKay says reminding everyone that it's a ship. "Remember that this was the race that built both the stargates and the Charon station. Atlantis is what they classed as a fortress colony ship, which is capable of intergalactic space travel."

"How much time would you think that you'll need?" O'Neill asked curious. "More to the point do you have that much time?"

"I don't know, a few minutes once I access the main controls and as long as no one leaves the embarkation room on the other side, then the shield should hold long enough. Let's go." McKay said quickly.

"Alright then…" O'Neill says as the Canadian scientist quickly headed out of the control room and towards the embarkation room. "Doctor Weir you have a go, just remember that it might be a while until we can get any relief out to you, so try and survive until then."

"No promises general." Weir said smiling as she followed her chief scientist to the active gate where the first of the fifty strong security members and McKay where just stepping through the event horizon of the wormhole.

"Jack it's not too late for me to…" Starts Jackson, as he and O'Neill watch the expedition members and equipment move up through the gate.

"No." O'Neill says interrupting his friend.

"I… I… I, could just grab my…" Continues Jackson determined.

"No." O'Neill says again with a small smile on his face laughing inside at his friends determination to go on the expedition.

"… kit." Jackson says under his breath, as the members of the expedition slowly but steadily moved through the gate along with their equipment and several of the new Laser RATs and two M-6 rail-gunner anti-air vehicles exited the base through the gate for their new home in the Pegasus Dwarf galaxy three million light years away.

-{[]}-

Lieutenant Aiden Ford was among the first group to step through the gate and into the Alteran designed control and embarkation room for the lost city of legend, and his first thought was of how awkward the silence was, as he moved to cover one of the several exits as several more personnel, and the first of the equipment came through, quickly followed by doctor McKay.

"Anybody see any controls or consoles?" McKay asked taking a quick look around the semi-dark room after he had come out the gate with a Laser RAT close behind him.

"There are some up here!" Major Sheppard called out from the upper level.

"Ok just give me a minute to access the systems." McKay said as he runs up to where Sheppard had called out from the upper level of the room.

"Secure the area!" Ordered the head of the military contingent of the soldiers who had through the gate already, just as Weir steps through the event horizon.

"Rodney?" Weir asks walking up the stairs towards the scientists.

"And that should just about do it." McKay said with a small nod, as a low rumble began to echo through the room as the ship the size of the island of Manhattan left the floor of the ocean and began to surface. After a few minutes the city-ship breached the surface for the first time in ten-thousand years and climbed a hundred feet into the air and allowed the water to empty out of the sections that had flooded, before slowly lowering its self and settling down. "We're on the surface." McKay said as the last of the expedition members came through the gate. "I'm lowering the shield, now." McKay said as the energy barrier which had held back the depths of the ocean for ten thousand years disengaged.

"SGC, this is Atlantis station, we offer you greetings from the Pegasus galaxy. You may now cut power to the gate." Weir said into a radio. A few seconds later a single large champagne bottle rolled out of the wormhole and across the floor as the gate shutdown. "Good work Rodney." She said as she bent down to pick up the bottle and read the attached note around the neck, '_Bon Voyage!_' and was signed by O'Neill. Smiling at the gift she turns and looks up towards Sheppard and McKay on the upper level, too which Sheppard just nods.

"Doctor Weir, colonel Sumner, we've found something you might want to see." Ford called out on the radio, "were two levels down from the gate level."

-{[]}-

"We found it just a few moments ago." Ford said as the group entered into a room with a raised pedestal at the other end.

"It came on the second that I stepped up to the pedestal." Said a Marine as he guested towards the paused hologram of the almost human looking woman in the center of the room.

"It's a recording." McKay stated.

"Aye. This is second time through it." Said Becket as he un-paused the recordings play back.

"In the hopes of spreading new life where there was none." The hologram said. "After a time this new life bloomed and prospered. In time a thousand worlds bore fruit of the programed design. Then one day our people stepped foot on a dark world where a terrible enemy slumbered. Never before had we encountered beings with powers and technology that rivalled our own. In our over confidence, we were unprepared and outnumbered. This enemy fed upon the defenseless human worlds like a great plague until finally only Atlantis remained here on Zion. This fortress-city's mighty weapons and shield was powerful enough to with stand their terrible weapons, but here we were besieged for many years. In an effort to save the last of our kin, we submerged our last great ship into the ocean. The Atlantis stella porta was the one and only direct link back to the lactea via lactea and Terra from this galaxia, so those of us that remained left this city returned to the world that had once been our home. There the last survivors of Atlantis lived out the remainder of their lives, and this fortress was left to slumber, in the hope that our kind would one return."

The hologram ended and Beckett stepped down from the hologram control podium as the room was stunned into silence.

"Huh, so the story of Atlantis is true." McKay commented as he looked at the space where the hologram which had been replaced it a hologram of the fortress with several area's on the outer areas flashing red. "A highly advanced city, that was lost due to war and sunk beneath the waves into the depths of the ocean."

"It just didn't happen on earth." Weir added nodding.

"My guess is that Plato must have heard it from one of the Alterans that came back to Earth." Mused McKay.

"I don't like the fact that they got their butts handed to them." Sumner said, his mind going then to dozen with tactical and worse case scenarios, that he had been briefed about or had experienced at the SGC before the mission had left.

"Sir, I'd highly recommend that we don't use the stargate until the fleet arrives." Sheppard suggested placing a hand on the podium, and thinking that it might be a good idea if they had some heavy weapons and that they had better check the ammo levels for the cities own weapons as well. "We don't need another enemy right now, not with what's going on back home." He finished as he sub-consciously had the city send a hyper-subspace data pulse to Anoke station with a resupply request for everything from plasma drone torpedo's and phase shifter quantum missiles and Drone Strafer star fighters, along with updates on the status of the city's internal systems and stores levels unbeknownst to everyone in Atlantis.

"Agreed." Sumner said, acknowledging that it was a sound and wise tactical plan. "No need to announce our presence here before we can defend this position properly."

Just as Sumner finishes one of the other scientists come running through the door and heads to McKay and whispers something into his ear.

"Let's hear it from the…" States Beckett as he moves to re-watch holographic history of the great city of Atlantis.

"Stop! Turn it off!" McKay as he pulled Beckett off of the podium. "Power levels throughout the city are dropping like a stone."

"Rodney?" Weir asked with concern. "What does that mean?"

"It means that even though we are on the surface, we need to stop everything we're doing and get the Vibranium naquadah hybrid arc reactors online. The city is designed to run off three ZPM's running in parallel and right now we are only working on the one and it's at around five percent and slowly draining away to nothing, less than when the shield was up."

"Do it." Weir said as the two scientists ran from the room and back up to the control room to remotely shut down as many systems and have teams tie in as many Vibranium naquadah hybrid arc reactors to the power grid as fast as they can and save their only remaining ZPM until they could find more. "Colonel you need to tell your people to stop exploring the city until we have the power situation sorted out." She said as she turned to the man in question.

Sumner nodded and reached up to his radio's ear-mic to relay the orders. "Attention all survey teams, this is Sumner." He said as he activated his all channels over ride onto the comm-system. "Fall back to the embarkation room immediately."


	15. Chapter 14: The ones forgotten about

**Chapter 14: The ones forgotten about**

Jenny Revell and John Andrews, both Thunderbolt pilots and squadron commanders for the extra-dimensional battlefortress ZSMF Archangel, where relaxing in one of the officers lounges looking at the only photo's they had of happier times back in flight school which showed their son Wyatt and smiled. In the image he was smiling while floating in a swimming pool, he had his mother's deep green hair but his father's sly grin, and Andrews couldn't help but feel a small tug of pride swell in his chest. "He has your hair."

"I know, but he also has your attitude." Revell said half sarcastically as she shook her head, "I can't get him to take anything seriously."

"Well he is only four," Andrews replied with a smirk, "he'll have plenty of time to get serious about things."

Jenny sighed heavily as she turned to face Andrews. "You see? This is exactly why I was reluctant to tell you about him, he should be thinking about his future and you act like it means nothing when he doesn't." She said her voice filling with venom.

Andrews starred at her for a moment, as the Archangel travelled through hyper-space the asteroid field in the Lantea system, before bursting out laughing. "Keelah, you're serious aren't you?" He said as he realized she was completely serious. "Geez Jen, the boy is only four years old! Let him be a kid for fracks sake!"

"Like you were?" Revell shot back defensively, completely forgetting their current situation, "I don't know if you understand this captain Andrews, but life is a whole lot different outside of Neo Macross city. Growing up on an orbiting mining station didn't leave a lot of time for fun and play, we didn't have all the money and luxuries that you and your friends had growing up, we had to work hard from the time that we could use a hydro-spanner."

Andrews shook his head, "Look," he said, "I understand…"

"No you don't!" Revell interrupted, practically shouting at her ex-fiancé, "How could you? Your parents were rich corporate executives who could afford to let you do whatever you wanted. NO, we had to get by with what we could make from the scrap which we could salvage or what we could dig up from the mines, and even then it was barely enough to put food on the table at times! There was no running off to the movies to see the latest films out of New Alexandria for us! No we had to work HARD every day just to make ends meet."

Revell paused for a moment to get her emotions under control before turning an icy glare on Andrews, with tear filled eyes. "I swore that I wasn't going to live my life doing what my family had done for the last few generations. I wasn't going to get stuck processing Trilithium and the other alloys needed for day to day life. That's why I worked so hard to get into the academy back home. That's why I worked so hard in flight school."

Andrews nodded, remembering how hard she had worked during basic flight-school. "I know you worked your butt off Jenny, I saw you do it, but every single one of us worked just as hard." He said calmly as the mighty battlefortress exited hyper-space and slowed as it entered into orbit of the asteroid sized moon of one of the gas-giants of the Lantea system.

"Not everyone," Revell said shaking her head in disbelief, "people from the Lagrange points, orbital colonies, Luna cities and Earth had it a whole lot easier than the rest of us."

"That's not true!" He spat defensively.

"Oh!" Revell said knowing. "How many people from our graduating class where from Eden Prime, Mars, Babylon Quintus or any of the frontier colonies? Well, how many?"

Andrews made to answer but she held up a hand to forestall him. "Just eight." She said, "Just the eight of us from a class of a hundred! The remaining ninety-two cadets were from the L-points, Orbitals, Luna and Earth."

Andrews held up his hands in surrender knowing how this was a sore subject with his ex. "Look I get it, I do and why you feel this way, but I'd hate to get back home to find that our son had lived like that."

"He's not our son!" Revell snapped defensively, "You weren't there for his birth and you sure as hell haven't been there all these years. What the hell makes you think that you can just waltz in when we make it home and dictate terms?"

This time Andrews stood, his own anger beginning to overwhelm him. "I am not dictating anything," He said clenching his fists. "and as for me not being there, well you made damn sure of that didn't you?" saying that he spun on his heal and stormed out of the lounge leaving Revell alone at the table that they had been using.

After a few minutes in which she downed the rest of her drink, she realized how she was wrong to have said what she had to him, but she couldn't help it. In her mind he had grown up a spoilt little rich kid who knew nothing of hard work or living hand to mouth, and she didn't want that for her son.

In fact she was willing to do anything to make sure that it didn't happen. Gathering the few PADD's and the small holo-displayer she had stealing herself as she stood and headed back to her cabin just down the hall from the officers lounge so she could be alone with her thoughts. Making sure that she had locked the hatch she sat on her bunk throwing the PADD's and holo-displayer on her desk before she curled up and began to cry.

-{[]}-

As Revell slowly started to cry in the safety of her quarters, the Archangel moved on the asteroid sized moon, descending into a low orbit before hovering over a very large crater at the edge of a mountain range with impact craters on its northern most boarder.

Suddenly green beams of light began to shoot out from the lower hull of the type two battlefortress, dancing across the base of the mountain range and a part of the crater, removing entire building sized sections of the surface, disintegrating them in an instant. This process continued for several hours until the beams changed over to a blueish white colour and began replacing the things that they had removed.

The moon now had a long hole, two kilometers wide by fifteen kilometers long. The beams began to place walls and floors in the hole. Soon the whole crevice was completely covered again, with a layer of rock and dirt thrown on top of it for camouflage and protection. The large hole at the base of the mountain that had been made to serve as a hanger for the Archangel, its destroid detachment and its veritech air wing. Here they could be repaired and possibly upgraded during their stay in this universe.

Once their base had been finished, the Archangel slowly landed in the new hanger that has just been created to act as a dry-dock while the vast majority of the MACO's and crew began to disembark and enter the main living habitat section deeper in the base built under the mountain range on the moon. It was here that they began to fill up the various rooms with equipment and personal items. They had a number of training rooms, several weapons rangers that included ship and urban combat training simulators, science and astrometric labs, even a replica of 'Pops Bar' from the famous Macross island. Over all the layout and feel was similar to that of any star base within the Earth Sphere Unified Nation back home with the exception that all of the signage on the base was in Zentron to maintain their cover.

They even managed to make a weapons plant so that they could finally replenish their depleted stocks of Korinthos photon torpedo's and Neidhart quantum battle station buster missiles, but it would be unable to make the newer trans-phasic drones since they were missing a key element Kironide with which to energize the phase shifting components of the weapon. Outside the base were several surface to orbit Gottfried cannons, similar to those gifted to the Tau'ri for their ships only more powerful, ready to defend the base from any possible threat.

Within the spacious main briefing room, which overlooked the docking bay for the Archangel, the members of the senior staff were currently sat around the table which was a copy of the one in the main briefing room of the ship.

"Great work Murdoch, it looks just like star base 002 back home." Hudson said giving the Trojan engineer praise.

"Well it was not hard sir." He replied, "I and executor Granger just tweaked the plans for a standard base which was in the main computer with what we required and the additions we were making and the system did the rest." Murdoch said in his typical Trojan completeness as he gave a small nod to the man that a year ago would have had gladly scrubbing the plasm manifolds with a tooth brush.

"So let's hear about what's new in the base." Dvorak asked generally wanting to know what the two men had created, since she hadn't looked over the final plans.

Granger nodded and stood up, activating one of the rooms holo-projectors, another of the improvements that had been made that allowed them to project holo-screens anywhere within the base and allow Doctor Smiths program access to the whole facility, as well as the Archangel while docked. "Well for starters, the base has the protection of the asteroid and the mountain range, but we've also installed several regenerative shield systems and pin-point barrier systems that are tied into the sub-space cores and proto-culture generators, so it should be able to with stand a fair bit of damage. We have also set up several surface-to-orbit SMAC and Gottfried cannons of Imperial design. They are actually the same ones used on Imperial planetary defense stations, as well as a class three grand cannon array." He said as he explained the defensive capabilities of the base. "There are also several thousand living quarters, several training and weapons rangers spaced through each level, two dedicated medical and hospital sectors, a number of science labs and three full gyms with a swimming pool." He concluded eliciting a chuckle from the room.

"To provide main power we've installed several neutrino ion reflex reactors, two sub-space cores and a small proto-culture generation complex, as well as numerous class 6 anti-proton reactors for emergency power."

"It sounds like you think that we could be here for a while then?" Asked O'Neill, taking a sip of her hynerian tea, warily.

Cochrane sighed. "It was my idea ma'am. I have no theories' as to how this happened and I've stated several times I doubt that we have what we need to get home."

O'Neill nodded, not entirely happy with the explanation but knowing that Cochrane, and even some of hers and Sisko's people, had been working around the clock to look for any explanation as to how their dimensional jump had happened before they could even begin to look for a way home.

Murdoch continued to explain the details of the new base's layout and overall design, in essence the base had been designed and built from the ground up to be nearly impenetrable, by having all of the advantages that both the Macross Fleet and Imperial Star Forces had in their other star bases but none of the weaknesses.

"The hanger where we've docked the Archangel is designed so that it is similar to that of the main dry-dock outside of Neo Macross city, although it has several major modifications." Murdoch said as the hologram enlarged to show the hanger area. "The main feature is that we have replaced the traditional robotic style manipulation arms with Imperial tractor beam systems and ship style transporters so we can carry out a full level one repair, which we have been putting off since we arrived, as the small amount of damage which we have taken from the Goa'uld. It also has a manufacturing plant that uses the same system as those of the MACO repair bay, for the creation of spare parts and other equipment should we need them." He explained.

"So we might be able to make a Saber class scout if we needed to?" Asked Hudson remembering the suggestion from one of the first staff meeting following the jump.

Murdoch shook his head as he regretted making a mention of it in that last staff meeting with the late admiral so long ago. "In theory yes, but I'm afraid that the massive amounts of both power and materials needed would drain the reserves and other sources a fair amount. While the synthesizers can create the raw materials out of energy from the generators, but in order to do so it requires a lot of energy, however if we feed them ram materials into it then it can repurpose them and materialize it into what we need, so we will not lose that much energy." He said before looking down at the table. "However there is a problem, sir."

Hudson groaned, having a feeling he knew where this was heading. "Oh, what is it?" He asked praying that for once his gut was wrong.

"While there is Trinium and other key elements we would need to make a new ship, we have detected no amounts of Tiberian, Kironide and Ununhexium 292 based on the scans we've taken of the Tau'ri, Goa'uld and Asgard ships, so we won't be able to make a lot of things which are required for the construction of the FTL system and barrier arrays. Fortunately we do have a few supplies of them on the ship, but most of those will be used in repairing the damage already present, and they will only last so long." He explained.

And that was the problem, especially if they lose more of their remaining Ghost and Thunderbolts. He had hoped that they might be able to have been able to build a smaller class such as the Saber class tactical scout or a Charon class light assault ship, but those hopes had just been thrown out the airlock at hyper speed as Murdoch finished his report on their supply situation, before he pulled up a schematic of a weapon from the aliens that had jumped them when they had been en-route back to Lantea. "This is one of the weapons that we took from those aliens that forced us from FTL. Using the ships computers and the information that has been provided by the Asgard. My team and I have been able to figure out that it works by using an element with an atomic mass of zero to propel small needle size piece of metal to almost FTL speed by altering their mass. Surprisingly the concept of this type of weapon is very simple, but very effective."

"Deculture! A gun that fires at the speed of light, that's something I'd like to get my hands on." Sisko commented.

"This element is also what allowed them to travel at FTL in their attack and force us from FTL back into real space. I believe that with enough of this element and some minor modifications our weapons will be able to do the same."

"How about those personal shields that they used. Could we recreate them as well?" Asked Sisko with a hopeful look on his face.

Murdoch shook his head. "I am afraid not as we were unable to recover any of their shield systems, which only negate the kinetic energy, but even then they can only with stand up to so much based on our engagement with the unknown ship."

Cochrane then changed the image of the weapons recovered to that of a Thunderbolt's standard 40mm Shinsei Industry five barrel gunpod used by the Archangel's air wing and CIWS arrays.

"This brings me to the idea that ensign Rockwell and crewman Charger brought to me. We've learnt from our engagements that the shields of a Goa'uld ship can with stand a decent amount of damage from our gunpod's and CIWS. So in order to give them more of a bigger punch, they have proposed that we modify the CIWS, gunpod's, asynchronous linear-induction motors, or Gauss cannons, and Valliant linear plasma cannons to be in essence larger scale versions of the previous hand held weapons."

"And this helps us how?" Asked Newman slightly board of all the weaponese.

"Well basically, that ship uses a very large mass accelerator cannon to propel slugs the size of a DL-88 centipede to 1% the speed of light, which either shattered or squished up on impact, at a rate of one every ten seconds. Of course they couldn't keep it up forever due to major heat issues arising."

Pretty much everybody nodded along, except for Newman who was losing interest due to all of the technobabble.

"By using this element to modify our weapons, and by placing a block of for example Trinium inside, we would be able to fire much more powerful shots since the slugs would be propelled both magnetically and through the use of this element, meaning we wouldn't run out of munitions as often as we would normally since the rounds would be shaved off of the block would be smaller, but fired at a much higher rate of fire and with a greater velocity." Cochrane finished.

"What about those overheating issues that you talked about lieutenant. Won't we have to deal with them as well." Asked Welsh as she began to design some upgrades for her specter grade weapons for when she needed to deploy with the rest of devil squad.

"Well thanks to the materials which are used in the construction of the aforementioned weapons systems we don't need to worry about it that much, and the gatling style of the gunpod's and CIWS will help keep the excess amount of heat in check, now while these shots won't be as powerful as the one fired from that ship, but since these are far more Gauss cannons and railguns I have no doubt that once they are upgraded we would be able to punch through the hull of a Promethean ship with enough time." Cochrane explained.

"Didn't Macross fleet command provide the Archangel with new weapons before it left for the defense of Lantea? It was my belief that these weapons are almost as powerful as the main gun." Dvorak asked having read through the logs of the previous XO colonel Wildhorse.

Welsh and Newman nodded in agreement, having been involved with the refit. "Yep, I'm with the XO on this sir, I'd like to see those new trans-phased plasma cannons in action sir." Welsh exclaimed since they hadn't entered into the firing arcs for them with anyone in this universe yet.

Hudson smiled at the obviousness of the gun-bunny that was also the ships only Lacadaemoniis corps member and spec-ops commander. "Well so would I, but at the moment only those of us in the command crew know about them, so I was hoping to keep them in reserve just in case we needed them."

They could all see the logic in that, even if the resident gun-bunny lieutenant Welsh still wanted to see the new trans-phased plasma cannons lived to their design specs.

Hudson gave Cochrane the go ahead, and soon Cochrane, Murdoch and the vast majority of the engineering personal began to upgrade the CIWS, Gauss cannons, Valliant linear plasma cannons, Thunderbolt and Durandal gunpod's and the heavy cannons on the small number of Vickers Chrauler MBR-06 Mk IX Tomahawk main battle robot's and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries siege class mobile weapon HWR-00 Mk VIII monster long-range robot, luckily they had found a rather large amount of the strange element when they had disabled the unknown ship, but when they had boarded it they had discovered that the crew had committed mass suicide rather than face capture, but if they were to explore any further applications they would need more of it.

Several hours later the lights in what was jokingly being called star base Archangel, switched down to a low light setting signaling that it was the start of the first official third watch on the subterranean asteroid base, allowing the command crew to get their first decent night's sleep in over two long years.

-{[]}-

It had been several weeks since the crew of the Archangel had established their base and began their long overdue refit and upgrade of the ships weapons as well as their personal weapons to use the element that the unknown ship had used. This was no easy task since none of them really had any experience with this element, but the science and engineering teams had scanned the weapons that they had recovered and had begun to reverse engineer them and it was predicted that the upgrades to the weapons, which would turn them into rapid firing mass accelerators cannons and allow them to hold back on their still limited number of Korinthos photons and Neidhart battle station busters, would be complete within six weeks as well as the full restoration of the ships shield, pin-point barriers and ablative armor systems and would mean that they wouldn't have to expose anymore of the advanced robotechnology on the ship.

The crew had spent the rest of their time making some minor improvements to base, such as the personalization of their quarters or using the ships synthesizers to create a hydroponics lab and garden spaces to allow them to relax as well as grow food, and while they wouldn't be ready for a while, but once they where they would allow them to operate more independently without having to rely on the locals, and give them a past time with which to occupy themselves outside of constant training.

In one of the many training rooms that they had built for the crew, Hudson and Dvorak were sparing using wooden training staffs. Hudson took a deep and steadying breath, feeling the heat from his muscles begin to radiate away from him, as he raised his wooden staff up into a guard position and nodded to his opponent, across from him, dressed in the same type of protective clothing that he wore stood sub-commander Dvorak, her own wooden staff over her head ready for a slashing attack.

Moving with a speed and grace that belied her size and stature, Dvorak brought her own staff down in a powerful slashing motion, but halfway through she stopped and turned the attack into one aimed to take off his head.

Hudson, having been trained since birth in the most common and lesser known forms of staff combat, which coupled with his genetic enhancements, wasn't fooled by her attempted ploy, keeping his staff upright he shifted his stance and moved his staff to easily deflect the XO's blow.

Seeing that his opponent was off balance for a moment, Hudson stepped forward into the reverse arc and slipped so that he was behind her, all the while positioning his own training staff up so that it was resting on her shoulder right next to her neck.

"Quarter." She grumbled as some sweat ran into her eyes.

"Given." Hudson replied, tapping her on the head as she removed her own protective head gear.

With the match over, Hudson collected her training staff and walked over to the equipment locker which rested along the wall of the training room and opened it to hang up the two training staffs on the rack and began to remove his own head gear and protective padding that he was wearing while he had been sparing.

"Thanks for the work out amica mea." He said as he toweled of the worst of the sweat from his face.

"No problem," She replied as she began to remove the rest of her own protective gear, "but next time do me a favor, pick on Granger." She playfully said.

"No promises Karina," Hudson chuckled, "but it's kind of hard not to kick his ass, and it's kind of hard to find someone who actually knows any of the combat techniques I know much less someone who is rated anywhere near my level."

"Isn't colonel Sisko and gunnery-sergeant Forge rated as third degree masters with the bacukum telo, if I remember the personal records correctly."

"They should be," Hudson said tossing her a sports bottle with water in, "I trained them both and tested them."

"You trained both Sisko and Forge?" she asked shocked catching the tossed bottle.

"They were my first two students. It was just after I had finished competing in my first omnes capiae contrahantar olympias." Hudson smiled as Dvorak, the woman who he had given his heart to during the war, and who prided herself on knowing the details of everything which was going on around her, was floored by this news.

"You… you competed in an omnes capiae contrahantar olympias for the Macross fleet?"

"Three actually." Hudson said pulling on his old spec-ops leather training jacket, "won a silver in my last just before the war."

Dvorak looked as if she was ready to ask another question when the voice of lieutenant Welsh came through the main public address system. "Pass the word, commodore Hudson contact station operations."

Pulling the zip up on his jacket, Hudson walked over to the comm.-panel in the wall of the training room and keyed in the code for station operations. "This is Hudson."

""Sir," Replied the gruff voice of colonel Sisko through the small speaker above the comm.-panel, "We found something you should see."

-{[]}-

"Report." Hudson ordered as he strode into the stations command center which was the control room for the whole base.

"Sir as you know we've been upgrading the ships Thunderbolt and Durandal's gunpod's and other weapons, and so far all of the upgrades to the gunpod's are 95% complete. So far it seems that there are complications with the introduction of this element, and it hasn't interfered with any of the fighters systems, all we need to do is test them under combat conditions." Said Sisko.

"But that's not why you called me is it colonel?" asked Hudson.

"No sir, but we've found out what the name of the race that attacked us was, and how that Alteran station back in Sol has been tracking us."

"How and who?"

"The race is call the Ta-tanen, highly trained Jaffa loyal to the Goa'uld Ptah, and it seems that they attempted to take over the Earth's stargate command a few years ago, but they never discovered why."

"Ok, that answers the 'who', now to the how."

"Actually sir, it's been tracking the tracer signal that we've been broadcasting." Lieutenant Welsh said.

Hudson's face took on a new shade of colour as the implications of what Welsh reported began to strike home. The navigational system is an automated signal that the Archangel's navigational computer sent out on a specialized and encrypted low band frequency. It was used by the navigational computers to constantly update its position against the navigational drift calculations as well as letting other Macross Fleet ships and stations know its position with ships that were in communications range.

"How… how did you find it?"

"I noticed that there was a glitch whenever we were within range of any planet that has a stargate on." Welsh said. "It seemed to be taking twice as long to update and the information storage buffer seemed to be storing an excess amount of information. As soon as I noticed it I let the good colonel here know and began a line-by-line code diagnostic on the program."

"In short sir, our little gun-bunny here found a code attached to the update subroutine." Sisko said, "which means…"

Hudson nodded his head in understanding as he felt his stomach tighten with the implication. "It would seem that we have a stow-away on board."

"Not quite sir. It seems that when we docked at Anoke station it uploaded a simple mining VI, but there is another reason why I called you for this briefing. As you know, we took several key pieces of equipment from the Ta-tanen, including one of their personal digital controls that they call an omni-computer form an officer. I managed to crack the encryption on it and discovered the location of where they come from."

Hudson looked confused. "Aaannndd this is important because…" he wondered.

"I managed to sift through the data on the thing, and I found a list of … servas that they are keeping right now!" Spat Welsh, her Mardook heritage threatening to overtake her emotional control.

The whole of ops went silent, everyone quietly waiting to see what the commodore was going to do, but surprisingly it wasn't Hudson who spoke first.

"We need to go to that planet." Was all granger said from one of the lower levels, the steel and conviction evident in his voice.

Hudson, despite sharing the same view and beliefs as Granger on this topic, spoke in a level headed tone. "Executor I understand how you feel, but as much as I'd like too, we can't just charge in there cannons firing. They attacked us and we defended ourselves, but this is different, we're talking about launching a raid on a heavily fortified base, we at least need to try and negotiate for the release of the prisoners first."

Granger nodded as he stood and walked over to them. "Ok, I'll tell the crew to prep the ship, and have all of the upgraded systems ready to go and have them plot a course out to the asteroid field to take some pots shots for calibrations."

"And than we'll decide what to do."

"What about contacting the SGC?" Sisko suggested.

Welsh shook her head. "From what we've been able to learn from the SGC's files, they won't typically go after them and would rather open up talks, unless they can confirm that it involves their personal, and it seems that they are too little of a threat for the Goa'uld so they ignore them."

"Look, I think we can work that out after we have tested the upgrades to the Archangel's weapons." Hudson said, wanting to grab a quick shower before watching the new guns in action. Personally, he would have liked nothing more than to head to this servas base, extract all of the prisoners, and fire the main cannon at the base vaporizing the spawns of Khyron from existence, but ever since he became a commodore he started to see things in a different light. He supposed that it came with the job of being in charge, as well as stomach ulcer, not that he would ever admit it.

-{[]}-

A few hours later the Archangel was sitting in orbit of the asteroid moon. While the crew was going over some final checks to make sure everything was in working order with the upgrades. Murdoch was in engineering making sure that by doing these upgrades the other systems wouldn't be affected. Luckily the fully repaired reflex and sub-space drive core where working perfectly.

The battlefortress cruised slowly towards one of the two asteroid belts in the system at sub-light speed, since it was only a few hours out there so was no need to use the fold system, allowing the pilots to get to know how to use their upgraded gunpod's. After about half way to the belt O'Neill recalled the fighters so she could be on the bridge to see how the upgrades to the ships weapons had been worth the effort like that of the gunpod's and Monster and Tomahawk class destroid's.

"Alright lieutenant, commence test pattern sigma 37 omega." Hudson ordered.

"Yes sir." Welsh replied as she targeted a number of the larger asteroids, each around two kilometers in diameter, with the upgraded CIWS, Valliant linear plasma cannons and Gauss cannons. Almost instantly hundreds of thousands of rounds shot out from the Archangel, slamming into the asteroids that were targeted at two and half percent the speed of light, turning the two kilometer long iron and Trinium asteroids into debris in under three seconds.

"Impressive…" Commented Granger, the rest of bridge crew agreeing with him.

The Archangel spent the next three hours testing all of the new weapons as well as letting the Monsters and Tomahawks to test their systems. Following the successful test and a level two diagnostic of the upgraded systems the command crew moved to the bridge level observation to discuss there next step. The group was sitting around the table debating on whether or not to launch a raid on the base that was used by Ptah's forces.

"We can't just simply sit by and wait while these people are facing these people to be enslaved, more so since it seems that they have some Zentron prisoners." Granger stated.

"What if we tried to barter for them?" Suggested Campbell hoping that they wouldn't need to resort to the plan to blow them to hell.

"These Ta-tanen, especially slavers, see that they are above all others. The information we recovered has suggested that they hate humans, and will probably attempt to come after us and to take the ship the moment we open communications with them." Dvorak said explaining the situation.

"Alright then, we go with Welsh's plan, go in under full stealth from the edge of the system do a final recon of the planet, and then deploy devil squad to take out any slavers and secure any and all prisoners as well as any useful intel." Sisko suggested, much to his annoyance.

Hudson nodded his head, "Sorry Meer, but I agree with the executor on this one. If we were back home command would send in a black star team to deal with them."

"What if we encounter those shielded troops again, we can't afford to have any team get bogged down with a fire fight, since we only have so many personal and I for one don't think we can lose anybody else." Campbell asked, realizing that she may as well help out with the planning.

"This is going to be of the essence here boss, so I say we keep this brief," Suggested Newman, speaking for the first time in this meeting. "but didn't that last recon flight note two cruiser class ships docked to the orbital tether and several heavy lift type shuttles parked on the surface outside the complex's walls? In addition to all this, they intercepted several transmissions to and from the both the complex and tether to a small fleet of twenty Ha'tak class vessels a few jumps away. In short sir, I'd say that Ptah knows we are coming."

This announcement elicited a small groan from everyone in the observation lounge and Hudson knew why. Most of the ships MACO's that where assigned to the Archangel before the battle of Lantea where specialist in repelling boarders. It would be down to them to use the small contingent of MACO's that were used to planetary assaults.

"Okay people, _stow it_!" Campbell finally shouted, shocking the rest of the senior staff with the outburst, "We've been in worse situations since we've arrived in this dimension and we've stood up and done our sanguinam officium. We will do it again!"

"Meer's right." Hudson said from the head of the table while nodding to the woman who was like a little sister to him. "We've all been through an awful lot since the incident, some more than most. Every one of you has risen to the challenges making this one crew not two and in truth, I couldn't be more proud. Were the situation any different, I'd just let a black star team deal with this whole thing. You all know that the slavery is wrong and Ptah is the Goa'uld that is the most creative of all of them so who knows what he is having the slaves do. Still if any of you wish to not take part, I'll let you bow out with no dishonor or marks on your record."

Hudson paused as he looked over the senior staff, and where there had been fear and apprehension in the eyes of those who were his subordinates, there was only a steely resolve. Hudson nodded. "Good, now this is how we do it." He said activating the view screen to show a detailed scan of the Jaffa base and the nearby airfield.

"The Archangel will engage the cruisers in orbit and pull them out of the gravitation well to prevent them dropping reinforcement's groundside. Marauder will be the acting CAG, April your stay here to run the base, and his task will be to keep the enemy fighters occupied up here so that they can't interfere down there."

The commander pointed to a mountain range not for from the Jaffa base. "Here is where one of the two Daedalus II's will make planet fall. We'll drop first platoon with a hard drop to secure a landing zone via drop pods."

"They'll be awfully out in the open sir. Will they have any heavy weapons support?" Asked Sisko worried about his men.

"We're going to be deploying all of the Monster and Tomahawk destroid forces for this mission. They will have plenty of firepower to back them up." Hudson said with a small predatory smile. "Once the dropship has landed, we'll load up all of the MACO's on the Laser RAT's, Rail Gunners and Missile Foxes, as well as the full complement of FS3-Starsaber fighters for close air support, and move out for the base. Once there, we will blow in the front gate and make our way to the prisoners quarters and form a perimeter around it and get everyone out on those shuttles."

"What about those big guns on those automated defense arrays, sir?" Asked Cochrane.

"That's where lieutenant Welsh and her devil squad come in." Hudson replied as he gestured for welsh to take over. "Lieutenant if you would please."

"Sir." Welsh acknowledged Hudson's lead, "Devil squad will do a night time para-drop eight hours before the main force. We'll move in along this ridge line," she said pointing out the terrain feature on the map, "and enter the compound through this canyon. We will then make our way to the controls for the defense grid and destroy them, rendering the grids turrets inoperative."

"How long will it take you?" Asked Dvorak.

"We plan to have them down about five to ten minutes before the attack, ma'am."

"That's cutting it a bit close, lieutenant."

"Any earlier and we risk them getting the grid online again before we manage to get everyone out of there."

Dvorak nodded accepting Welsh's logic. "This is going to be tight then."

"Yes," Hudson replied gravely, "and we are probably going to lose a few people."

The commodore let this thought sink into the heads of his senior staff for a moment. It would be a very dangerous mission and he was sure that the next time that he saw some of their faces they would be from within a torpedo case.

"Okay, get with your section heads for more specific details and commence mission rehearsals immediately. The more we train now, the less we will bleed when the fighting starts."

"Sir, when do we go?"

"We jump in forty-eight hours. That's not much time so let's get to it."

-{[]}-

Kutukan, head of the Ptah's Ta-tanen for this base, smiled as he entered the small room which had been converted into an interrogation chamber. In the center of the room, shackled to a steel table lay the Tok'ra Kanan covered only by a set of half destroyed clothes. The temperature in the room was only a few degrees above the level for inducing hypothermia and the former slave was stretched out in a spread eagle fashion which didn't allow him to conserve any of his body heat. Of course, this wasn't the first time Kanan had been in this situation.

Since the fall of Anubis and Kanan's capture, Kutukan had found a perverse pleasure in torturing and humiliating the Tok'ra operative following his capture by his master Ptah. Officially, he put it down to wanting to break the Tok'ra spy in order to learn more of the Tok'ra's secrets.

In reality he despised the Tok'ra with every fiber of his being.

"Morning shol'va." Kutukan said with scorn dripping from his voice like venom. "Did you have a good sleep last night?"

On the table Kanan's fought to remain conscious and clear headed but it was difficult. He had gone six cycles with almost no sleep and he was shivering uncontrollably. His body ached from the repeated strikes it had received from the pain stick and he didn't have the strength to lift his head.

"That's okay, rest while you can. We have a long day ahead of us." He said raising his kara kesh to be begin the day's torturer.

-{[]}-

Several hours later the man, Kyle Rogers, that SG1 had meet a few years ago when he was being trained to impersonate a member of the SGC by Apophis, laid the badly beaten Tok'ra back against the softest material that he had been able to find in the ramshackle room that he and several other prisoners shared in the slave quarters.

"Easy now Kanan," Rogers said as Kanan whimpered in pain, "Everything is fine now, you're back with friends."

Kanan made no attempt to reply as he passed out again from the pain.

Rogers shook his head sadly, every seven cycles Kutukan would come and take Kanan away, sometimes for several cycles at a time. He would torture him to within an inch of his life then send him back along with food and some Tau'ri style medical packs for Rogers to patch him up. Then just as Kanan would start to regain some of his strength, Kutukan would come with two Jaffa and take him again.

Rogers had tendered to the Tok'ra's wounds and had done everything he could to try and keep the other man strong, but with every session the man and his symbiote grew weaker. Though he wouldn't admit it to anyone else but his prayers to the Ancients to give the pair strength, to allow them to pass on from this world so that wouldn't suffer anymore.

"We can't keep this up much longer." Said one of the other slaves named S'Kar as he attended to the cut's on the Tok'ra operatives chest. "This man won't survive another session."

Rogers nodded. "I know that S'Kar, but I'm sure that the Tau'ri or the Tok'ra are looking for him."

"Right." S'Kar said having faced the Tau'ri on multiple occasions. "The Tau'ri are probable dead thanks to Anubis, and what are they going to do without a Chappa'ai to get here."

Rogers smiled. "You would be surprised at what the Tau'ri can do with their small teams, remind me to tell you about the time SG1 helped me prove to a full planet of people being trained to attack the SGC that the Goa'uld are not gods."

"More history young one?" S'Kar asked with a smirk on his face. "Believe in the gate builders and all that."

"See even in your old age you are still teach an old Jaffa new tricks." Rogers joked to the older Jaffa warrior.

A voice from the shadows chuckled and Rogers turned to see the only woman in their section of the slave quarters, her face badly bruised and framed by dirty blue hair. "Maybe," said the woman who was known as Motoko Kusanagi of the PMC group Sandline Galactic Eternal class ship Quarter, "but if I know the crew of the ZSMF Archangel they will come to rescue us, but they had better get a move on or their won't be anyone left to rescue."

-{[]}-

"Battlestations! Battlestations! Set level one throughout the ship and prepare for a combat fold. Set for a level one combat fold and begin fold prep."

Marauder looked up from the picture of his cousin Motoko Kusanagi that he held as he bowed on one knee and sent a silent prayer to the gods for her protection of her soul within the ready room for ARMD one. Taking one last look, before he placed the picture of his cousin back in his locker hoping that she was safe back in that other dimension they called home.

It had been nearly two years since the battle of Lantea and the pain was still raw now as it had been when the announcement had been made. More and more he found himself wishing that his cousin was here, even if it was just to argue with her. Only in the cockpit was he able to put the pain from his mind. While he was there he allowed this pain to morph into something useful… anger, and from there that he was able to do one thing that made him feel a little better.

Every time he destroyed a ship which was trying to sink the Archangel, it was a small measure of revenge which soothed his soul. Of course, when he landed on the deck again he had to face the cold walls of his cabin, both on the ship and the newly built star base, and the pain came back to him with a vengeance.

"Lords, her my prayer," he muttered, "bless my hands so that they may war upon my enemies. Bless my mind so that I might protect my loved ones, bless my heart and give me piece so that I may hurt no more. Bless my cousin and let her know safety and your love forever."

"Ahem…"

Closing his eyes for a moment to regain his composure again, before he stood up and placed the picture of him and his cousin outside of fleet headquarters back home, back inside of the armored pouch on his right arm of his flight suit. Only then did he turn to find his counterpart from Dragon squadron, Snips, standing behind him in the hatchway with his own armored flight suit with his helmet under his arm in the ready room.

"What's up kiddo?" He asked as he pulled his own helmet out of his locker.

"Thought that I'd tag along with you to hanger deck." Snips replied with a small smile.

Marauder nodded, "Well then, let's go." He said lading the younger man to the lift leading down to the hanger deck.

"So, how you feeling?" Snips asked as the lift starts to descend.

"Frosty and sharp." Marauder replied, "You?"

"Frosty and sharp!" Snips replied, "Frosty and sharp!"

The two men continued the ride in silence until it stopped at the flight deck. As the doors opened, the unmistakable smell of proto-culture fuel cells, lubricants, ammunition and missiles filled their nostrils. In front of them, red clad hanger crew technicians moving around quickly preparing to launch the various Mk VII Thunderbolts, a few VF-27SP super Lucifer's, VF-29 Durandal and ghost drones.

"This is my floor." Snips joked.

"Me two," Marauder replied, with the same dry wit, as they began to walk over to his personal black and red Durandal fighter. "Good hunting and god speed, kid."

"Hay old man," Snips called out, causing the other pilot to turn around, "don't go trying to win this one on your own, I doubt that the CAG, XO or the commodore would let you rest in the fields of Elysium if…"

Marauder considered his words for a moment then nodded wordlessly in understanding, before he continued on his way to his fighter. He'd be coming back alright…when every single one of these slavers had been blown from the sky.

-{[]}-

"Two minutes!" Announced Revell, call sign Angel, from the cockpit of the stealth assault ship.

From her place in the troop bay, lieutenant Welsh gave Angel a thumbs up in response before polarizing her helmets visor on her Mk III exo-frame with the recon variant of the fire force assault weapons system, basically the same as the one the Rockwell was wearing without the chest mounted plasma gatling cannon but had additional subspace comm-unit. She then stood up and gestured for the rest of the squads attention by holding up her arms out in front of her, palms outwards.

The rest of the squad responded by mimicking the gesture.

"Stand up!" She commanded and immediately the team stood up in a single file with Newman taking position at the rear and McCloud at the front. Seeing that everyone was up and ready she simply nodded.

"One minute to atmospheric entry interface." Angel called out.

Immediately everyone jumped into their orbital insertion pods which ran along the outer edge of the stealth ship. "Devil squad the light is green."

Suddenly welsh felt the sickly twist in her stomach as the ship made the transition from FTL to sub-light within the upper atmosphere of the target planet, instantly the ship began to shake as it was buffeted as a result of the atmospheric entry. Underneath the teams drop pods the hull retracted and the flashing red light went to a steady green followed by the mag-clamp and thrusters firing.

"Go! Go! Go!" Welsh shouted as the teams single occupant exo-atmospheric insertion vehicles fired away from the ship, seeing the that the pod containing Newman fire away from the ship she followed suit and within a second found her pod falling through the sky, the sound of the air muffled by the sound dampening equipment which was built into her helmet.

-{[]}-

"All stations report level one set sir." Cochran reported from his temporary station at the tactical station on the bridge of the Archangel. "Fold system is powered up and ready to deploy."

"Very well then set the clock and set it for five minutes." Commodore Hudson replied as he turned to face Dvorak, "XO, copy Archangel station and get another ETA from the drop ship."

"Aye sir." Dvorak replied as she activated her headset. "Attention drop one and Archangel station fold clock is running at T-minus five minutes, three, two, one. MARK!"

"Copy Archangel. See you on the flip side." Came the calm voice of major O'Neill from Archangel station on the surface of the moon.

"Cochrane, get me Marauder on the horn and patch it through to my headset." Hudson commanded.

Cochrane nodded as he touched a control on the panel in front of him. "Marauder, Archangel. The commodore wants to speak to you." He said pointing over at Hudson. "You're on sir."

-{[]}-

Inside the cockpit of his Durandal fighter on the flight deck of ARMD 1 Marauder flipped a switch and activated the comm.-system. "Marauder here sir, go ahead."

There was a pause on the line before Hudson's deep rich voice came over the line exuding confidence. "Be ready to provide escort for those heavy lifters as they are coming up, I have a feeling that Ptah isn't going to make this easy on us and his forces will be on us rather quickly."

"Sounds like you're expecting this to be a trap sir?" Marauder asked as he made a fist to stretch his gloves to sit right.

"I am. Be ready."

"Aye sir, and don't worry, we'll get everyone out of that base, even if I have to blast every single one of their fighters out of the sky with my side arm."

-{[]}-

Sitting in his command chair on the bridge Hudson arched an eyebrow, there was something off about the way Marauder had replied that didn't seem right.

"Secure this channel." He commanded.

Cochrane nodded as he did as ordered. "Aye sir, channel secure."

"Marauder," Hudson began, "Focus on your mission son, I know your upset but you can't win this one on your own and I'm sure that Motoko wouldn't want you to die senselessly."

"Sir, it's…"

Hudson cut him off, "I know what you and your cousin went through John. Your family will think your dead, don't make it a reality."

-{[]}-

Marauder sat quietly in his cockpit as the soft yet powerful words from the commodore hit him with the force of a macronized member of the crew. Images of Motoko floated through his mind and he could clearly see them both sitting with a group of their friends and Fuchikoma multiped tanks in a cherry blossom grove somewhere on earth.

It stirred his anger, the pain and absolute rage that he felt over their dimensional displacement.

"You have to let it all go." He heard Hudson say. All of his memories came boiling up inside of him like a star that was ready to go supper nova. The burning painful rage that had been fueling him for just over a year threatened him with tears. Closing his eyes he inhaled deeply and help it for a few seconds, before with an agonizing exhale… he let it go.

"I… I understand sir." Marauder replied after a few moments. "I'll see you on the flip side."

"I look forward to it, captain." Hudson replied adding "God speed."

-{[]}-

Lord Kur took a moment to carefully re-read the report that had been handed to him by one of his more loyal Jaffa. It read that one of Lord Ptah's scout ships had spotted what was believed to be a Tau'ri ship a few jumps away from lord Ptah's slave and re-education planets.

Looking at the low resolution recon image, he smiled as he realized that his long shot was actually coming to fruition. Against all conventional wisdom, the Tau'ri was going to try and rescue them without access to a chappa'ai.

"My lord." Asked A'Noth as he approached his commanding officer.

"It would appear the Tau'ri are growing bold."

Kur nodded. "Indeed they are."

A'Noth moved back towards the controls at the front of the pel'tac. "It would seem that everything is going as you planned, My lord."

Kur made no effort to hide his pride. "Yes it is, and if our plan works then we will be the ones to gain the credit as the ones who stopped the rise of the Tau'ri. If it fails, then we will use it as fuel against those old fools that make the system lords."

A'Noth chuckled at that. "My lord remind me never to play stratagem against you, you think far too many moves ahead for me."

Kur nodded but said nothing. 'That's all right my loyal Jaffa, remember who it is that is the military brains behind this operation, remember whom it is that is indispensable to your plans.' He thought.

-{[]}-

Barron Ldias yawed stretching and for the thousandth time, as he laminated on his bad luck and political misfortune that had handed him the worst assignment in the universe.

On paper, commanding Lord Ptah's premier re-education and research center was a great honor, but for a man like Ldias, who had spent his whole life since taking a host clawing his way to the to the top so that he could one day take up the rank of system lord, it was the ultimate disgrace.

And why was he here? It was simple because he had expressed Tok'ra feelings to his lord while he was at a meeting with his lord. How could he have known that one of his Jaffa was a spy for Anubis? How could he know that he would tell his master about his plans to retake the Draco system from Anubis?

So just like that, Ldias dreams of taking up a seat next to his lord as an equal. Now he was here in the arm pit of the universe, commanding a slave camp where the chances for earning glory were virtually none existent.

Shaking his head in self-pity, he took a bottle from the shelves behind his desk and opened it, taking a long pull of the dark brown liqueur, savoring the burning contents inside.

Click.

What was that? Ldias thought to himself, setting the bottle down on the corner of his desk.

Click. Click.

Now he was irritated, one of the Jaffa was probably outside his office doing some sort of routine maintenance, but he had gave strict orders that no one was disturb him. With an angry snarl on his lips, Ldias stood and stormed to the door. This time the shol'va would learn the hard way that when I give an order it is to be obeyed! The angry thoughts in his mind that dwelled on brutalizing whoever it was that was offending him died when his door opened to reveal several heavily armed troops all pointing some type of weapons at him. Before he could speak or activate the shield on his kara kesh the leader hit him in the gut with a brutal blow that drove the air from him. Unable to even scream for help, Ldias fell backwards tripping on his robes onto his office floor as the heavily armored troops flowed into the room like they were water.

Looking down, Welsh smiled behind her polarized visor at the damage that Rockwell had done to the spawn of Khyron. "Pick. That. Up." She ordered as she pointed to the Goa'uld stultus who was laying on the floor.

Quickly Rockwell manhandled Ldias to his feet the barrel of his feet and held him there with his Gottfried next to his eye line, while Welsh moved closer, almost face to face with him.

"Hello Barron. This is how it's going to be, I ask you a question and you will give me the answers."

"Go to Netu!" Ldias gasped.

"Oh you will, but first you tell me everything that I want to know."

"What makes you think I will tell you anything?"

Welsh chuckled as Rockwell produced a pair of very nasty looking slip jointed bone scissors, "Because each time that you lie to me, each time that you don't tell me something I want to know my friend here will remove something dear to you and he won't be quick about it."

Ldias face paled as the image of these masked and armored troops removing parts of his body became real in his mind. "You are Tau'ri though," he said mustering as much courage as he could. "What about your vaulted sense of conscience and morality?"

Again Welsh laughed in a low and menacing way that made Ldias' blood run cold. "We are devil squad. They didn't issue us with any form of conscience."

-{[]}-

"Fold complete sir." Sub-commander Dvorak reported as she turned from the sensor station to face Hudson in his command chair.

"Launch fighters and report all contacts." Hudson ordered as he looked out the blast shielded view port on the bridge.

"Aye sir." Dvorak replied activating her head set, "XO to flight ops. Bring the Thunder, I say again Bring the Thunder." She nodded as she received the acknowledgment through her head set. "Thunderbolts, Lucifer's, Durandal's and Ghost launching now sir."

"Sir, I have three contacts on screen." Cochrane reported from his post at tactical. "Engine signatures confirmed two Ha'tak class ships disengaging from the tether."

"Any gliders?" Dvorak asked as the bridge escorts formed up for protection.

"Not yet sir… no, wait one…" Cochrane flipped a switch and focused in on one of the two Ha'tak's. "Confirmed sir. Ha'tak two is launching gliders and the tether Al'kesh class bombers."

Hudson nodded as he studied the tactical display that had activated on the forward view screen. "Contact colonel Sisko and tell him to commence drop operations."

"Aye sir." Cochrane said.

"What about those fighters and Al'kesh?" Dvorak asked.

"Tell Marauder to close with and destroy. All modes authorized."

"Yes sir." Dvorak said with a smile.

"Weapons." Hudson said turning to face the Archangel's weapons control center where the ships other resident gun bunny crewman Hayama was. "What's our range to target?"

"Sir, range is sixteen thousand and closing." Hayama replied. "At current speed we will be in range of Gottfried's and Korinthos torpedoes in three minutes."

"Recalculate for flank speed."

"Aye sir." Hayama said as he worked the math on his targeting computer. "At flank speed we will be in range in one minute fifty sir."

"All ahead flank, hold intercept course." Hudson said as he turned to face Campbell at the helm.

"All ahead flank, hold course aye." Campbell replied as she accelerated the ship to point three of the speed of light.

"Sir, targeted vessel is now seven thousand clicks and is beginning to maneuver." Cochrane reported.

"Target their engines with Korinthos torpedoes and stand-by with Gottfried's and Valliant's. We need to make this quick before they can call for reinforcements."

"Anything on comm's." Dvorak asked.

"Negative." Replied Hill from the main comm-scan station, "in fact, I'm not getting anything but a beta pattern on the low bands."

A mall smile crossed Hudson's face. "Looks like devil squad made it after all."

The Archangel plowed through space like a demon on the warpath. Her bow mounted Gauss cannons and missile and torpedo tubes were wide open, giving the impression that she was a beast whose teeth were bared for combat. In front of her, her entire complement of Ghost drones and veritech fighters, over a thousand fighters made a direct course towards the enemy death gliders.

-{[]}-

In his cockpit, Marauder gritted his teeth and allowed a warm hatred to come over him like he had never felt before, his eyes narrowed and he began to target ships he intended to kill.

"Okay here they come." He announced into his helmet mic. "Pick your targets, and don't leave your wingman behind and don't let these spawns of Khyron any slack, Snips take two flights and hold back to protect the ship. If they get past us then they are all yours."

"Snips two six two seven, roger that. Dragon Alpha and Beta flights, fall back to rally-point constitution." Said snips.

Marauder, satisfied with his arrangements, flipped over a switch to activate his targeting scanners. Inside his helmet his breath was hot and steady, his heartbeat was fast and strong as the thrill of combat came over him. This was his element, this was where he was at his best and this would be the place where he would exact his revenge.

"All fighters," He snarled, "weapons and modes free. Lets. Bring. The. Thunder!"

-{[]}-

On the bridge, Hudson watched the tactical display as his Thunderbolts clashed with the gliders that had been launched from the station and Ha'tak's. He smiled as the gliders began to wink out as multiple missiles and tracers rounds impacted them.

"Sir, target vessel is now within range of the Gauss cannons and Korinthos torpedoes are locked onto their engineering sections." Cochrane reported from the tactical station behind him.

Hudson nodded. This was it, his blood was boiling now. There were slaves down on the planet waiting for a rescue which might never come… and heaven help anyone who got in his way. "Open fire."

-{[]}-

Kusanagi looked out the window of her cell into the night sky, she didn't know why, but she had awakened with the felling that something big was going on and she couldn't shake the feeling that something big was going on and she couldn't shake it no matter what she did. Suddenly, she saw several streaks of light shoot across the night sky in a straight line, then a flash of light. Smiling, she moved quickly to where S'Kar, Kanan and Rogers side and gently tapped the trio on the shoulders. "Hay gents, wake up."

"Huh?" The injured Tok'ra agent asked. "Wh… wats going on?"

"We need to get ready."

"What, why?" Asked S'Kar as he moved closer.

Kusanagi couldn't hide her excitement any longer. "Because I think someone is attacking this place."

-{[]}-

Welsh looked at the now bloody and exhausted form of Barron Ldias and smiled, "See now that wasn't so hard was it?" she said as she wiped the blood off of the set of tension wire cutters that she was holding in her hand.

Ldias, now missing his entire left hand, hung his head in defeat. "If you have any mercy, you will kill me now."

Welsh cocked her head to the side as if in thought and then brought her masked face down to eye-level with the captured man. "You're right, if I had any mercy, but the truth is, I never had any to begin with and even if I had any, what you have done to these people would be more than enough to forget it."

Snapping her fingers, she ushered the rest of devil squad out of the office. "I think I'll let your vaunted and highly skilled Ashrak have a go at you… a little pay back for the hell you have put these people through."

Welsh walked out the door, leaving Ldias to ponder just how agonizing the next few days of his drastically shortened life were going to be.

-{[]}-

Peaceful silence, like he was floating on a clam day in the crater lakes on Epoc. That what crossed Marauders mind as he drifted in his life pod one hour after the de-fold of the Archangel in the vast coldness of space as the vicious fighter battle played out in orbit before his eyes.

He felt pissed even though there was no real reason for him to be, he'd personally managed to take out two dozen of Ptah's advanced gliders and Al'kesh bombers before a Ghost drone had exploded due to a lucky shot from the orbital tether's defenses, destroying his flight and transformation controls. It didn't matter though, he had wanted to finish this fight in his cockpit and taking down the enemy, he wanted to be the last thing that these Jaffa heavens saw before they were turned into fireballs.

But instead he was floating here in space like a piece of junk with a pair of broken legs.

It had been hard, but he had managed to put the pressure seals on and bacta-gel before the auto-ejection system he punched him out of his disintegrating Durandal. Thank lords he had otherwise it would have been a race to see if he would of bleed out or died due to lack of air first.

Part of him wished he had gone up in a fireball, as he had seen so many rookies, the short lived explosion caused by his reactor going wildfire and igniting his fuel and oxygen reserves. "Better to burn out than to fade away." He muttered the line from his favorite singer, but he had done that, he wouldn't have been able to cause the damage which he had before punching out, and that was a thought which brought a smile to his face.

After his controls had been destroyed he had seen that his engines were stuck open at full throttle in fighter mode, and that the station he had just been strafing only moments before was still in sight. It had been difficult, trying to guide his stricken fighter with just his foot controls as he placed the pressure wraps on his injuries, but it had been worth it. Just seconds before the impact he had punched out and rocketed away from his dying fighter, smiling as it impacted right where the docking controls for one of the docking bays was.

He even saw as two Jaffa got sucked out through the hole in armor that his fast pack equipped fighter had created. If they weren't dead from the impact and explosion, then their last few moments of life would have been extremely painful as their blood boiled and sought a way to escape while their lungs froze solid. It wasn't the nicest way to go, but Marauder didn't give a frack, they all deserved it if they were going to drop so low as to use slave labor.

These bastards where using slaves to build their tech and infrastructure. What's worse the people they were here to rescue had been working and living in peace before they had been captured like they were nothing more than cattle, now all he wanted to do was to send these people back to their home's. He had to survive, he had a son in his own dimension that he needed to return to. A little boy who would need him in the coming years as he began to ask questions like '_Why didn't mummy tell me about you?_' or '_Why didn't you look for me?_'

It was up to him to try and answer those questions. He had already shied away from love once because of his pride, and he would be damned if he would do it again. Looking down, Marauder noticed something that immediately made him take notice, one of the pressure seals on his left leg had started leaking, and the small blood that had escaped had frozen instantly as they crept from the edge of the bacta-gel wrap along with wisps of vapor which he knew to be his oxygen supply. First he had blacked out from the ejection sequence, now he had awakened to find himself slowly dying.

"Well isn't this just a wonderful end to a totally fracked up day."

-{[]}-

His name was baron Ldias, and until a few moments ago he had been the undisputed master of Ptah's re-education center, research and naquadah mines. Now as several Jaffa cut him free from the chair that he had been bound in, he realized that he was nothing more than a dead man walking. The main in front of him wore the blood red armor of a Ta-tanen warrior. Under his cowl, the face of Kutukan was one of scorn and disgust.

"You gave them the codes to gain control of the orbital defense network." Kutukan snarled, "How else have you managed to betray us and our Lord Ptah you filthy Shol'va?"

Ldias stood upright, his bandaged right arm still dripping with blood from where his hand had been severed. "I am still in command of this base remember that. You will show me the proper respect." He said his anger making his eyes glow.

"You are weak! You broke under the most trivial of pain and as one of lord Ptah's Ta-tanen. I am fully authorized to take command and have you executed for your failure here."

"Then do it." Ldias snarled back.

Kutukan was momentarily taken aback by his sudden show of defiance. The man knew he had screwed up but he was unafraid. He was ready to face his fate for what he had done and it almost made Kutukan admire him. Almost.

"No, I won't kill you yet. Orbital defense controls have been destroyed and we have reports of Tau'ri forces landing nearby. You are still the only reasonably competent one that we have here so you will have to be here so you will have a chance to redeem yourself, Barron."

Ldias was thunderstruck but it didn't take him long to recover his wit's. "Good. Now get the hell out of my way I have a battle to win."

Kutukan watched him as he left. "Yes, you do."

-{[]}-

Colonel Heero Sisko braced himself as the Daedalus II sat down on her four massive landing legs.

"Report." He commanded after the ship had stopped vibrating.

"Sir, landing operations are complete. All four landing legs are secure and deployment ramp is extending now." Reported lieutenant Yau from the operations station.

"Understood, have Duo begin deployment and have ship based weapons commenced over watch."

"Yes sir."

"And have captain Satori get the star saber fighters air born and let Delta one know our status."

On the hanger deck, captain Duo Maxwell III and his destroid counterpart, captain Athran Lal, was leaning against the leg of his command type Tomahawk mark XI destroid.

"Sir, you are go for deployment." Said the voice of lieutenant Hail through the comm.-links.

"Copy." He replied as Lal throw his toothpick away. "Ok people it's time. Mount Up!"

On command, the five hundred MACO's who were gathered in the forward deployment area of the hanger began to climb into their Laser RATs, M-9 rail gunner's and missile fox MLRS which had risen from the storage deck on the launch elevators only moments ago.

Climbing into the specially designed command and control Laser RAT, he secured himself in a chair that was surrounded by display screens, each of which gave him a piece of the overall tactical pitcure which he had to co-ordinate.

"Five seconds until the ramp is down boss."

"Very well," He responded as he flipped over to the general command channel. "Five seconds until deployment, stay in your teams and for Earth's sake keep an eye on everyone. We're not leaving anyone here. Understood!"

"Oorah!" The MACO's responded as the vehicle he was in vibrated as the forward deployment ramp touched down on the solid surface of the plant and Maxwell went into action. "Driver move out. All vehicles and destroids move out!"

From the bridge of the landing ship, colonel Sisko watched on his monitors as the assault bays and on to the desert plain of the planet. It would be morning soon so they had to move quickly. Devil Squad had done its work, or so it had been reported. Which meant that, for the moment the assault force wouldn't be expecting any resistance that would be worth anything, at least not straight away. At times like these that Sisko was reminded of something that his father had told him before he went off to basic training, 'no plan no matter how well planned _ever_ survives contact', and over the years he had found that saying to be true almost every time, even when he had been dating his late wife. This time, however, he prayed that it would be one of the time when his old CO was wrong.

-{[]}-

De-fold plus five minutes.

"Sir. Marauder reports that several flights of enemy bombers have broken through the main line." Cochrane reported from the tactical station as another impact caused the mighty Archangel to shudder under his feet.

"Contact Snips and tell him to take them out." Sub-commander Dvorak ordered.

"Sir, Ha'tak two is coming broadside to us." Said the weapons controller from the lower level.

"Trying to hide her damage from that last salvo." Hudson said.

"They must be hurt bad to risk exposing their flight decks to us like that." Hill replied from the flight operations station. "I'd say that we have an opportunity to take her out of the fight for good."

Hudson nodded in agreement. "I agree, tactical lock Gottfried's one and two on to Ha'tak two hanger deck and fire."

"Aye sir." Cochrane replied as he began target the requested location, "Locking on. Firing."

The main starboard weapons lit up with the massive firepower that they contained. The phased energy plasma cannons, commonly known as Gottfried's, hurled two emerald beams of plasma in straight lines that streaked towards the exposed flanks of the Ha'tak controlled by Ptah's forces.

Marauder was in awe momentarily as he saw the salvo slam into the Ha'tak. The plasma plowed into the side of the ship sending brief plumes of fire out from decompressing areas of the hull and shards of armor and debris spinning away in lazy circles.

Then it happened.

As technologically advanced as the Archangel was, the truth is that there is no way to guide a plasma round to its target. Unlike a missile or torpedo, once a round from a Gottfried is fired, it was going to go in whichever way it was pointed until it reached the maximum range and the laws of Sir Isaac Newton, so no corrections were allowed.

Therefore, when Cochrane had said he had a lock, it wasn't necessarily a lock on the flight decks themselves, it was in fact a lock on the general area of the vessels since the ships where both moving, but one lucky beam did just fire as it sailed into the open flight deck and landed just behind the fuel cells for the advanced gliders that where being employed by Ptah.

The detonation was indescribable.

Marauder watched with mixed emotions of horror, anger and pride as the Ha'tak's fuel cells erupted first into the empty hanger deck and then through it vaporizing the lower half of the ship. Smaller sympathetic explosions began erupting all over the ship as her reactors containment failed and she slowly began a slow spiral of death towards the planet away from both the tether and its base complex.

On the bridge of the Archangel, cheers erupted as the first ship began to fall to her death. Hudson allowed it for a moment as the crew needed it. These were the people that had been brutalized at the hands of the enemy who were spiraling to their deaths, in front of them, it might have been morbid, but it was justified.

"Sir!" Called out one of the sensor tech's at a lower comm-scan station.

Hudson looked but couldn't see who it was that was calling out over the noise and raised hands. "Quiet down."

Nobody heard him except for Granger who took it upon himself to get things back in order. "Shut the Stercore up!" He shouted after whistling loudly bringing the celebration to a screeching halt. "We're still in the middle of a good darn fight, so get back to your stations and heads back in the game."

Quickly and quietly the crew returned to their work and soon the hum of the battle returned.

"Sir, I have three new contacts." The sensor tech announced.

"Confirmed." Cochrane added. "Two more of Ptah's Ha'tak and a cruiser have just jumped in."

"What are they doing?" Asked Dvorak as she moved over next to Cochrane.

"The upgraded Ha'tak's are making a bee line directly for us, sir. The cruiser is breaking off and moving into a defensive blockade around the tether." Cochrane reported.

"Looks like they are going to try and block the dropship and heavy shuttles, as they return to the ship." Hudson said. "Contact Sisko and tell him to brace for orbital strikes but keep those shields active as long as possible."

-{[]}-

De-fold plus seven minutes.

Welsh moved swiftly and silently keep her team close as they made their way through the darkened area of the prisoner encampment. Stopping quickly, she held up her hand and flattened against the wall and activated her active camouflage unit in her exo-suit, her squad doing likewise as a couple of Jaffa passed by them.

Looking up, Welsh could see the battle in space was beginning to heat up judging by the flashes of light that where illuminating the night sky. Part of her wished that she was up there as she had gotten quite comfortable as the operations officer on the Archangel.

'_I am the nightmare in the dark,_' she thought to herself as she motioned for Newman and Rockwell to take out the Jaffa that had just passed, '_others rest peacefully in their beds because I stand ready to do violence on their behalf. I am the nightmare in the dark and the reason that the unjust don't sleep at night. I am the righteous justified vengeance, the great equalizer. I don't seek fame. I do it for myself, my home and the ZSUN. I never leave anyone behind. I am a quiet professional and person of honor, for I am Lacadaemoniis._' As she finished mentally reciting the creed of the highly classified Lacadaemoniis corps to herself to help her focus, as it usually did when she recited those words that she had first spoken it almost ten years earlier when she had graduated from the Robotech special warfare operations training school by the Utopia Planitia area of Mars. During the ceremony, general Miriya Parina, the commandant of the training school had told them that no matter what happened in the future, no matter what assignment they took on as a cover, they must never forget that their missions in Lacadaemoniis corps came first. Miriya had been a mentor, even a mother like figure, to Welsh during those nine hellishly long months at the school and so she took special note of the women's words.

She had hit it right on the lead.

"Alright, the assault force should be on their way by now, we need to wire the barracks and armory's to blow before they get here so let's get on it." Welsh ordered.

"What about those sentry towers?" Newman asked retuning his combat knife to it sheath that was mounted recon style on his armor as he returned from killing his Jaffa target.

"I'll handle those Crystal." Said ensign Max Ray.

"Okay," Welsh agreed, "but do it quietly. We don't want to start this party before we have to."

"Well we've already took care of the orbital defense grid, tower grids, interstellar communications and the alarm systems so their response time should protinus as inferos." Said Rockwell.

"Yeah, but when Sea starts making things go boom, it won't take them long to work out what's going on and spread the work." Said McCloud.

"Ohh Sky, you're giving me a hard on over here talking about things going boom." Ray replied with a smirk in his voice.

"Save it for the demo job Sea." Welsh said checking her timer on her suits tac-pad one last time. "Okay, Sea you take your med-kit and track down those Zentron life signs, it's your job to get them out ok, land I want you to cover him."

"Who's going to cover you Crystal?" Newman asked.

Welsh smiled behind her helmet. "I'm with boom boom over her. We are going to play a game of how many slavers can we turn into instant mulch."

"Ten gets you twenty that I win." Newman said with an evil smirk behind his helmet's mask.

"Ok ma'am but watch him," Rockwell said pointing over towards Ray, "he tends to get a little too excited around explosives, if you know what I mean."

"Funny land, but I brought plenty of tissues to clean up with this time." Ray replied.

They all chuckled briefly while making snide comments about how sick Ray was, even some disparaging remarks about how he is the inbreed result of a Zentron and Vajra. Finally the squad became quiet as the importance of the moment became real to them.

"God speed guys." Welsh said breaking the silence. "Let's go get some."

-{[]}-

De-fold plus thirteen mins.

"Sir, comm-scan reports that contact Ha'tak one is vectoring for planet fall." Granger reported as he examined the various reports and dispatches from the various sections as well as the Daedalus II landing ship.

"Deculture, they're catching on fast." Cochrane commented as he coordinated the fight from his temporary post at tactical. "I don't get it, the assault ship has her stealth system active and optical camouflage active. They should look like a big nothing on sensors."

They have to have eyes out there somewhere." Hudson said.

"But how? I don't detect any ships out there." Cochrane replied.

"Then it has to be something passive, something that isn't using a lot of power." Dvorak said.

"Like a powered down or cloaked ship?" Asked Campbell from the helm as she maneuvered the ship to avoid fire from the high orbital station for the tether.

"No, it would be to close, beside colonel Sisko deck teams would've spotted it." Cochrane replied.

Hudson stroked his chin in a manner which, if he had a beard would have looked like he was stroking it in a thoughtful manner, and told both Dvorak and Campbell the he was thinking hard about the problem. Finally he shook his head. "There has to be a tracking device on the ship."

"Wouldn't the stealth system jam it?" Cochrane asked.

"No, the Sterling stealth field only blocks the emissions from the ship that it has been programed to detect. If there is a tracking device on it, then it is putting out a signal that most of the signal is being blocked by the S.S.F. so they wouldn't be able to get a solid lock on it." Cochrane explained.

"But once they do get close enough they wouldn't need a solid lock on it." Hudson stated flatly as he activated his headset. "Landing actual, this is Archangel actual, change of mission follows."

After a few seconds of static, the comm-line opened and the voice of colonel Sisko replied. "Archangel actual, this is landing actual. Change of mission acknowledge, standing by for orders."

"Landing, Archangel, stand down from stealth mode and go to full fortress mode. We believe that you have been marked with a tracker. Use whatever means you deem necessary to defend yourself."

Hudson heard Sisko cuss out in a mix of Zentron and Tarskian, he knew that the hard as nails MACO colonel would be angry about someone getting a bug on his lander. "Understood actual committing now."

"God speed. Archangel out." Hudson said as he turned to face Hill at the flight operations station. "Flight ops contact the CAG and have him dispatch a flight of Thunderbolts and some VB-9 Konig Monsters to assist the landing team."

"Just two flights sir?"

"The main fight is here, they'll want to keep their birds where the main fight is." Hudson remarked, "One flight of Thunderbolts and a force of VB-9's will be more than enough to keep that second Ha'tak from becoming much of a problem."

In his cockpit, Marauder listened to the instructions from the Archangel and looked at his tactical display. All if the Archangels fighters were involved in a nasty scrap occurring off the bow of the second Ha'tak, but not all of them were actively engaged. Touching his flight suits integrated tactical pad he called up captain Graves, the CO of the 86th fighter squadron. "Gold six, CAG. I need you to send a flight to cover Quantum force to help out the landing force."

"Copy that," Graves replied, "I'll send enterprise flight since all they're doing is strafing runs on that tether's defense cannons."

"That works CAG out." Flipping the screen back to the feed from the ESINTs, Marauder saw that the other new Ha'tak and cruiser where launching fresh gliders and that they were speeding directly at his own forces. Thinking quickly he activated his comm-link over ride for the fighters. "Red, Green and Blue squadrons form up and move to intercept those incoming fighters. Gold, Pink Peckers and Cosmo Tiger squadrons, I want you to keep those fighters contained and prevent them from linking up. Above all else I want them contained and away from the barn."

Getting acknowledgements, marauder turned his Durandal towards the new threat and accelerated at full speed, eager to start the hunt anew.

-{[]}-

De-fold plus seventeen minutes.

Welsh made a quick check of her mission timer and look over her shoulder at ensign Max Ray, who was just completing the wiring job on the explosives which he had placed on the building next to them.

"Step on it sea. We've already at plus seventeen. The MACO's assault force will be here any minute." Welsh whispered into her throat mic.

"One more second sir," Ray replied as he placed the last wire in. "and set."

That was when a horn sounded like an alarm.

Suddenly all around the two special operations operatives a number of touches lit up and light sprang on and the sound of the horn woke the sleeping Jaffa alerting them to the impending danger.

"Deculture! The gigs up! Execute your missions NOW!" Welsh commanded as she hefted her Plasma motor attached to her backpack down into firing position as she started running for the prison complex. "Sea blow it as soon as we're clear!"

Welsh and Ray died behind a low dirt wall just as two Jaffa exited the building that they had just been taking cover behind and leveled his rifle version of a staff weapon at them.

"Now!" Welsh shouted.

As Ray slammed his hand down on the detonator button on his mark two-s exo-frames tac-pad, that building and several others around the base evaporated in a shower of plasma and debris as the c-38 plasma demolition charges that they had set erupted in fiery blue and purple death blossoms. Above them, shots rang out as the other members of the infiltration team went into action taking out their assigned targets.

"Devil squad sound off!" Welsh commanded as she took in the sudden chaotic situation.

"Sky here, I found the Zentron life signs but she has company. Going to need to clean house a bit before I can carry out the extraction." McCloud answered over the comm's. "Hold one."

The sounds of breathing followed by the sound of micro-missiles firing carried through over the comm-link that McCloud had opened. Welsh smiled as she listened to her subordinate work.

"Ok, guards are down but there's a lot of activity over here." He reported.

"I know, someone had activated the alarms manually." Welsh replied. "Get to that Zentron life signs and get them to the extraction point."

"Roger." McCloud replied activating his flight unit to dodge a pair of staff blasts.

"All devils, start finding the slaves and getting them to the extraction point." Welsh commanded as she began to hear the sound Tomahawk's firing their Gauss cannons in the distance. "Sounds like the MACO's are here for some fun."

-{[]}-

De-fold plus twenty minutes.

"All hands brace for impact." Dvorak shouted as she watched another salvo of heavy plasma bolts streaked toward the ship from the tether.

"What's the enemy count now?" Hudson asked preparing himself for the impact.

"Sir, I have five Ha'tak type and three cruiser analogs still active in the fight," Cochrane reported as several fighters took out the tethers last weapons, "and Ha'tak two is still in a low decaying orbit away from the prison and landing craft."

"Fighters?" Dvorak pressed as the deck heaved under them from the weapons fire.

"Impact on the number three dorsal power regulator!" Reported a crewmember from the lower level of the bridge. "Rerouting through the auxiliary system."

"Make sure you keep the power flow stable in those sectors," Murdoch said as he looked at the bridge's damage control board, "the last thing we need at the moment is to have the reactors on ARMD 2 "brown out."

"Commodore, we have a problem here." Campbell shouted from the helms main seat.

"See to it." Hudson said to Dvorak as he turned to face the tactical station, "Zee, target Ha'tak two and remove her from my sky."

"If I do that sir, I'll have to divert fire from the cruisers three and four, and they are burning hard for us." Cochrane replied.

Hudson nodded his understanding. "I know that but they are still at range and easier to deal with."

"Aye sir, diverting fire now."

"Kira, we have a slightly serious problem here." Dvorak said from the helm next to Campbell.

"What now XO?" Hudson replied as he moved over to her side at the helm.

"Sir, we are in a port ventral spin moving at five degrees a minute." Dvorak reported to him without turning to face him.

"I assume that this isn't your doing Meer?" Hudson asked raising and eyebrow as he looked at her.

"One time." She mumbled. "In fact we are having to fight her to keep her level and it's getting harder."

"Murdoch, what's going on with the bow maneuvering thrusters?" Hudson asked the chief engineer.

"All forward RCS thrusters are green sir. No damage reported." Murdoch said looking at the damage control board,

"Then what's causing this spin?" Dvorak asked, knowing that had just finished a full ship wide repair and overhaul.

Murdoch looked to be deep in thought for a second and then raised his eyebrows in surprise as the answer dawned on him. "Sir, I need some to do an over flight of the engineering sector to see if there is any damage."

"Wouldn't the DC board show it?" Dvorak asked.

"Not necessarily, since the jump and even after the overhaul, we've been having some trouble with the external sensors aft of section two three nine alpha which we haven't been able to pin point."

Hudson nodded and activated his comm-link. "CAG this is actual."

"Go for CAG." Marauder replied, his voice muffled slightly due to his flight helmet over the comm-link.

"Marauder, can you spare someone to do a damage control over flight of the aft section of the ship."

"Yeah, I can spare me I'm not tied up at the minute." Marauder replied. "Give me sixty seconds and I'll report back."

"Understand, standing by."

In his fighter, Marauder activated the frequency to his four squadron commanders. "All six elements, I am going off net. Actual wants eyes on the engines. Snips you're in charge until I get back."

"Copy that." Snips replied.

Transforming his fighter from battleoid to fighter, he flipped his fighter 180 and extended his throttle well to the wall. It only took a few seconds before he was approaching the aft section the ship, but even at range he could see that something was wrong, very wrong."

"Archangel… Marauder. I think I found your problem," He said as he opened a channel, "about halfway down the bottom number three thruster you have a burn through in the shielding. You're venting drive plasma, port side ventral."

"Roger Marauder. Thanks for the assist."

"No problem Archangel, returning to the… Frack!" Marauder said before suddenly lurching back as his cockpit seemed to explode around him. "Ahhhgh! Damnant quad deorum!" He yelled as his cockpit slowly began to fill with smoke while every system started to flash red or blare an alarm.

"Marauder… Archangel. What's wrong?" Asked the concerned voice of Maria Hill.

"Ghost two just exploded directly under me." He replied as the smoke in the cockpit began to vent from the cracks in the canopy. "Shit, I've got shrapnel in my legs."

"Punch out. We can have a search and rescue Argo over to you in a few minutes." Hill replied, practically pleading with him.

"Negative, I can handle it," He said ignoring her pleas since he was patching things up with Revell. "just give me a second to put the pressure wrap and batcha-gel on my legs."

Inside, Hill waited anxiously as she listened to the battle going on outside. "Fuck, I should be out there." She muttered to herself.

"Flight, he's accelerating away from the Archangel." One of the comm-scan techs shouted up from the lower bridge level.

"Marauder… Hill. Comm-scan shows your accelerating away from the ship."

"Yeah, my throttle is jammed fully open." Marauder responded.

"Ok that's it punch out!" Hill said almost ordering it remotely.

"Sorry Maria, can't just yet I've got an idea that your, great, great, great grandfather would love." Marauder replied as he tightened the last of the pressure straps on his dressings. "But get that rescue ship out, I'm going to need a lift in a minute or two."

-{[]}-

Captain Maxwell checked his map screen again as the sound of the Tomahawks firing their Gauss cannons came from outside his Laser RAT.

"Sit rep." He commanded as he opened up a general comm-link to the ground forces.

"Contact with enemy on the left flank sir. Alphas five, seven and nine along with second squad are moving to engage now." Came the voice of one of the platoon leaders.

"Very well, secure that flank a.s.a.p." Maxwell said as he looked out of the periscope at the rapidly approaching tether base and prison complex. "I make out several silhouettes along the south wall Athran. What do you see?"

"The same, no signs of weapons fire or search lights though, if I had to guess, ten would get you a hundred that our friends have taken care of their side of the mission." The gruff voice of captain Athran 'Red Demon' Lal replied from his command Tomahawk Mk XI which was at the head of the destroid column.

"Agreed, we'll proceed as planned." Maxwell replied, "Bravo six this is Alpha six, you are go to assault the gate. Charlie six, Alpha six, I see several targets about three clicks up on the tether. Close with and eliminate."

Maxwell received his acknowledgements from both the destroids and the small number of FS3 – Star saber fighters, he activated the link to his Laser RAT's driver. "Flank speed to the gate."

The massive wave of Laser RAT, Rail gunner's, Missile Fox's, tomahawk destroids and Star Sabers surged forward as they rounded the final dunes and closed in on the front of the tether complex.

"All units, commence Macross ATTACK! Close in and eliminate any resistance. Once inside form a perimeter as planned and dispatch your teams. We'll have twenty minutes on the ground until we pull out, so be quick about getting those prisoners on those transports or be dead."

-{[]}-

De-fold plus twenty-nine minutes.

"Come on you ugly fracked up beast!" Marauder growled as he attempted to keep his Durandal fighter level and on course using just the foot pedals, his legs where screaming in pain, but the bacta-gel was keeping the worst of it away so he could focus in on his target. "Whoa!" He shouted as he slammed his foot down on the left pedal causing the fighter to roll sharply to avoid a stream of anti-air plasma from the tether, "Damn these folks are getting more accurate."

Having been forced to use his foot pedals to try and steer his ship due to the damage caused by the explosion of a ghost drone underneath him that had nearly shredded his cockpit as well as his transformation and avionics controls. Now he was speed at full thrust towards the outer docking arms of the tether orbital station and doing his best to stay on course. Naturally, the station wasn't exactly a small target so it wasn't as difficult as one might think, the hardest part was avoiding the constant stream of plasma fire aimed his way. "Just a few more minutes and your ass is going to be mine."

-{[]}-

"Hello!"

The voice was unfamiliar but it had been proceeded by three quick shots, which had dropped their guards like wet sack of meat, so Motoko Kusanagi decided to take a chance and respond.

"Over here!" She shouted, "We've got wounded. We need to get him out of here."

Kusanagi almost jumped back at the sight of an armored and masked man yanked the door open using the key card that he had removed from one of the Jaffa while another who looked like a walking tank covered them. "Lieutenant Kusanagi?" he asked his voice masked by his helmet's voice modulator, but sounding confused.

"Yeah, let me guess you didn't expect any Sand Personal here."

The two walking arsenals nodded, before stuttering, "Well… yeah." In English before saying in Zentron "this isn't exactly home if you catch my drift."

"Imagine that," She said as she rolled her eyes, but catching their meaning, "there is a Tok'ra agent over here that need's a medic."

"I'm a medic ma'am." The one who had what looked like a mini-veritech on said as he handed her a FN-P117 from his back. "Can you help Land cover the door? I'll check him out."

"Give your sidearm to S'Kar there." Kusanagi said as she took the now unfolded rifle and trained it out the door.

Looking up McCloud saw the former first prime of Ja'din emerged from the shadows of the cell with a large Iron bar as if it was a Ma'tok staff. "Apologies but I had to be sure that you were the Tau'ri." S'Kar as he dropped the improvised staff.

"No problem," McCloud said passing the Jaffa his type two linear beam pistol.

"Nice weapon." S'Kar commented as he examined the small hand-gun, before flicking the safety off and moving to take a flanking position next to Kusanagi. "Do you have a name warrior?"

"We're devil squad, no names."

"What do we call you two then?" Kusanagi asked from the doorway.

"I'm Air, and the walking destroid there is Land." McCloud replied as he began to scan Kanan before giving him something for the pain before treating his wounds with bacta-gel. "I'll have him stabilized in a few minutes. Get ready to move."

"Never been more ready in my life." Kusanagi replied scanning out the doorway. "Tell me is there a captain Andrews on this mission?" Noting the small word Archangel on the rifle and remembering that her cousin had been assigned to it just before the Prometheans had attempted to invade and her ship had been thrown into a different universe.

"Negative ma'am he's acting CAG right now."

Kusanagi smirked, John was a natural pilot and an excellent leader despite his macronized ego, so she knew that the fighter battle over head was in good hands. She couldn't wait to see him and tell him…

No, that could wait until later.

-{[]}-

De-fold plus thirty-one minutes.

"Marauder! Marauder!" Hill implored over her comm-lines head set. "I've lost him sir."

"Keep tracking him on sensors, Maria, and have the search and rescue Argo launched." Hudson said as he turned to face Dvorak. "Get with Murdoch and handle that burn through."

"Aye sir." The pair replied at once.

Hudson studied the sensor readout on his chair's holo-display for a second, then turned back to face Hill. "Isolate Marauders signal and pipe his details down here."

"Aye sir." Hill replied as she used a light pen on the comm-scan display for Marauders Durandal and transferred it over to the commodore's tactical readout, where he studied the zoomed in section of the battle giving it his full and careful attention trying to make out the younger pilots intent. "Widen the range of the scan by two thousand clicks flight." He said as he furrowed his bow in concentration.

"Done sir." She replied as the deck beneath them vibrated as the two Monster class destroids near the bridge opened fire.

"Sir, we just lost the starboard side bow sensor grid." Murdoch calmly announced.

"They most likely hit the computer hub in that section. Have a damage control team get down there and get it back online yesterday." Hudson replied quickly. "Helm come right thirty degrees and give me ten degrees negative pitch on the bow planes."

"Aye sir." Campbell replied quickly.

And then it hit Hudson what Marauder was planning to do. "Hill, locate the upper station of the tether."

Hill checked her readouts quickly and found what she was looking for. "It's at one twenty orange seventy five blue, range twelve thousand."

"That's it then." Hudson said as he turned to face Cochrane at tactical. "Lieutenant, give me a fire lane down Marauders axis and do your best not to hit his plane."

"Yes sir."

"Sir, we've shut down thruster number one and stopped the burn through, it is going to play hell with the ships navigation though." Dvorak reported from the damage control board.

"It will have to do till we can get her back in the dock to repair it." Hudson replied. "Granger send a signal to colonel Sisko and tell him to get a move on."

-{[]}-

De-fold plus thirty-five minutes.

Kutukan studied the map hologram and saw that the situation was indeed grave. While the Jaffa stationed in the command center had been able to restore power to the alarms, the heavy auto staffs and point defense array which was mounted on the perimeter of the tether complex were still unresponsive along with the shield and anti-air grids.

"How many Jaffa have been lost?" Ldias demanded from behind him, sitting in his throne with two Jaffa as his personal guard.

"Milord we have lost seventy five percent of the Jaffa stationed here when the sleeping quarters exploded." One of the Jaffa replied.

"It would seem as though the Tau'ri have thought this attack out to the last detail," Kutukan remarked casually. "no doubt they had information about this complex and its defenses before they attacked."

"No doubt." Ldias replied as he turned to one of the Jaffa.

"Send the remaining Jaffa of the third force to the walls and have whatever Jaffa we have left post to the slave quarters."

"Yes milord."

"Milord, our scouts report that a large number of Tau'ri vehicles are moving on the complex." A young Jaffa said from one of the many Goa'uld style communication stations in the command center.

"Numbers." Ldias asked his eyes glowing.

"At least a full battle cohorts worth milord." The Jaffa replied.

"At least fifty transports." Kutukan said, having spent some time on the first would before the Tau'ri has started to make an appearance on the galactic scene. "Without the anti-personal and anti-vehicle weapons on the perimeter we won't have a chance of repelling them, yes it would seem that the Tau'ri have planned this out quite well."

"I still have a few surprises left for them." Ldias said with a small predatory smile. "Has the third force reached the wall yet?"

"No milord."

"Good, tell them to equip themselves with Lord Ptah's latest weapons and prepare to remove the Tau'ri from this universe."

"At once milord."

"Jaffa with staff cannons won't be able to stop an assault force of this size."

"Then we shall have to reduce their numbers to something more favorable then?" Ldias relied with an evil smile and a flash of his eyes. "Jaffa Kree! Contact the Ha'tal and tell its commander to target anything in front of the main gates."

"Yes Milord." A Jaffa replied.

Kutukan arched his eyebrow in curiosity. "Something that lord Ptah needs to be made aware of?"

Ldias chuckled. "No," he replied as he folded his arms across his chest. "No we have an older model of Ha'tak half buried with the lower heavy weapons transferred to the upper hull in the mountains to the west of the complex just in case of such a heavy frontal attack, the transfer was only finished the other day. I kept it isolated from the main system so that we could fall back on them in case the automated defense systems failed."

"And why didn't you inform Lord Ptah of this?" Kutukan asked.

"Not to worry, I was going to inform him at my weekly update tomorrow."

Kutukan nodded approvingly. "You might find yourself in the care of Tevok after all, Baron. I might even forget to tell his excellency the fact that you broke under duress."

Ldias prideful sneer was wiped clean by the words of the Ta-tanen, such was the power of Ptah's elite guard. Even a Goa'uld could fall at their hands.

"Now shall me the view of the Tok'ra's cell." Kutukan ordered. His lips tightened and eyes narrowed as the scene on the screen changed from the main entrance to an open cell door with three Jaffa who were stationed there and no one inside of it.

"It would appear that even your elite Mars Vigilante have run afoul of an SG team." Ldias said with a barely cancelled smile.

Kutukan didn't respond to the dig from the minor Goa'uld, though Ldias knew that the Ta-tanen was shaking with a rage. "Contact the rest of Mars vigilante and have them meet me at corridor duo babylonis!" he snapped as he whirled around and stormed out of the command center.

Ldias smiled and tossed a half-hearted wave at the back of retreating form of Kutukan. "As you wish."

-{[]}-

De-fold plus forty minutes.

"Alpha six! Alpha six! This is platoon two six! We are under fire! I say again we are under heavy fire!"

Maxwell turned in his seat and flipped the switch to activate his radio mic. "Platoon two six, this is Alpha six. Give me a sit-rep over."

"Alpha six, we started to place the demo charges on the gate when we came under heavy in direct fire sir! We're falling back right now but we have no cover and enemy infantry on the wall have heavy plasma weapons."

"Deculture!" Maxwell breathed, "Any casualties?"

"One Rail gunner and two missile equipped cyclone troopers."

"Spawn of…!" Maxwell snarled. "Alright, fall back to mobile position alpha." Thinking quickly, he activated the comm-link to the Archangel.

On the bridge of the Archangel Cochrane listened to the call from Maxwell and relayed the ground situation. "Stand-by Alpha six." He replied turning to sub-commander Dvorak, "Ma'am, I have a class theta request from Alpha six for an orbital fire request. He says that they are pinned down by heavy indirect fire."

"Does he have a fix on the source of the fire?" Hudson asked calmly before Dvorak could answer.

"Yes sir." Cochrane replied as he walked over to the two senior officers and pointed to the mountain range west of the tether base station on the map of the surface. "He reports that the source is a half-buried Ha'tak style mothership and that his weapons fire and destroids are ineffective against their shields and fortifications. We will have to shift orbit to a lower altitude to get into a decent firing position sir."

"It's also danger close." Dvorak added from besides the zooming in tactical map.

"Can you hit it without killing anyone in the compound?" Hudson asked, knowing it would be a very trick shoot.

"It's too close for either the main gun or an alpha strike, maybe the upgraded Valliant's in the ventral array, if you can get someone to tag it with a tagging laser. I'll be able to send the rounds down their barrels if you'd like." Cochrane said with an almost predatory smile.

Hudson smiled as he fought the urge to laugh at how Cochrane was starting to sound more like Granger. "Do it, communications get me on the horn with Devil six and have them paint those guns."

"Aye sir." The two officers replied.

"Campbell, bring us into a low orbit for a fire support mission from the ventral Valliant cannons." Dvorak said in a commanding tone.

"Aye ma'am." Campbell replied as she took in the information that was now on her helm controls. "Altitude z-minus ten thousand meters, direction come left ten degrees, roll right thirty degrees."

All around the bridge crew sprang into action as Campbell moved the ship into the right position. Hudson watched satisfied by the crews performance and smiled knowing that the fight planet side was about to take a turn for the worse for these slavers.

-{[]}-

De-fold plus forty-two minutes.

"Copy Archangel. Give me sixty seconds to set up." Said Welsh as she acknowledged Hudson orders. "Land, break out your tagging laser and get to the highest point you can find and locate where that artillery fire is coming from. You have forty-five seconds."

"On it Crystal." Rockwell answered using Welsh's codename.

"Air, sit rep."

"I've located the Zentron prisoners plus three with me. The Zentron personal are Sandline from the Quarter. I'm one minute from the evacuation point." McCloud replied.

"Good. Over-watch."

"Lights are out. Standing by for some target practice." Newman replied with a slight giggle to his voice.

"Okay. Have fun and start head hunting, Land find a spot and hole-up until Sea or I signal you, then contact the Archangel and tell them target is painted."

"Roger Crystal." Rockwell replied, "What are you going to be doing?"

Welsh laughed a little at that innocent question. "Me, I'm going to go with Sea and pick a fight."

-{[]}-

Colonel Sisko paced the bridge of the Daedalus II landing craft while he kept his eyes glued to the comm-scan display. "He's still on us." He growled.

"Sir, if he gets much closer, he'll be inside of the minimum firing range." Said Yau the drop ship's XO.

"I'm tired of this shit anyways. Full power to weapons and shields, lock on for a full alpha strike." Sisko commanded with an almost predatory tone to his voice.

"With pleasure." Yau responded with a smile on her face. "Weapons warming up now sir."

"Enemy vessel has increased speed and is closing sir." One of the bridge crew reported.

"Open missile ports alpha one through bravo ten and lock Lohengrin's." Sisko ordered.

Yau flipped a switch on the weapons control panel. "Ports open and cannons locked sir, forty-five seconds till they breach minimum firing range."

"Target their bridge." Sisko said, "If they want to come at us straight on I'll give them a reason to rethink it."

"Incoming!"

"Shields to max." Sisko ordered, "XO How long until we have a firing solution?"

"Three seconds sir." Yau replied as she worked feverishly to get a lock on the descending Ha'tak.

"Ten seconds until impact."

Sisko watched as the seconds counted down to the impact from the Goa'uld's bombardment.

"Yau…"

"Got it sir!"

"Then by all means. Fire!"

All ten Star Lancer anti-ship defense missiles launched out in a straight line following the beams of the Lohengrin anti-matter cannons, and targeting lasers that the dropship in fortress mode was painting the cruisers suspected command center with. Both sets of weapons passed each other as the sped past on their way to their targets.

"All hands brace for contact!"

Everyone on the bridge of the dropship grabbed hold of something as the plasma raced towards them. Then they hit. The ship quaked and heaved beneath them as the plasma bombardment hit the shield and surrounding plateau, over loading the relatively weak, compared to the Archangel, shield of the drop ship and damaging the port side of the forward assault deck. Alarms bleared and sparks flew as several systems shorted out and died.

"Hull Breach!" Someone shouted as a new alarm began to scream.

"Portside assault deck." Another voice shouted. "Sealing it off!"

The ship continued to heave on its landing struts for a few more moments and then it finally stopped as an eerie silence came across the bridge.

"Damage report!" Sisko commanded.

"Hull breaches on the port side assault deck, all forward of frame six." Yau reported, "They are completely open to atmosphere in sections two alpha through twenty-three delta as well as… oh deculture!"

"What is it?" Sisko demanded.

Lieutenant Yau sighed. "The spawns hit the main power line for the anti-grav's, power is fluctuating in all systems forward of frame twenty-nine."

Outside the sky suddenly brightened so much that the viewport automatically polarized to black blocking out the brilliant glow which attracted everyone's attention.

"What the hell was that?" Sisko asked, blinking away the spots from his eyes.

"That sir was the enemy Ha'tak. Looks like I got a lucky shot sir." Yau replied with a slight shrug.

"That's a comfort." Joked Sisko as he pulled out a cigar, just as the blast shutters dropped and the bridge lost all power. "That's not."

-{[]}-

De-fold plus forty-four minutes.

Ensign Jake Rockwell perched himself on top of a roof vent near the base of the tether where it met the command building with a clear view of the Ha'tak class as he activated his shoulder mounted tactical targeting system as he peered through the targeting display on the inside of his visor on his helmet. "Target is green." He announced as he adjusted the settings on his tac-pad so that he could record the upcoming fireworks. "Crystal send the signal."

Down below, Welsh was hidden behind a small building which smelled an awful lot like a refuse, she paid it no mind, though she was determined to take an extra-long shower in addition to standard decon, as the message from Rockwell came through. "Copy Land, message away." She replied as relayed the message, via her suits built in sub-space comm-unit, to the Archangel in low orbit.

On the bridge, Cochrane received the coded text message and turned to Hudson. "Sir encoded message from Devil one. It reads, target is green, bring the rain."

Hudson gave a nod after studying his own tactical display. "Got it. Feeding the coordinates into the ventral cannons." He said as he finished imputing his command code to allow for planetary assaults. "System is ready to fire sir."

"Fire." Hudson ordered.

On the surface Welsh received a simple one word message, which was clear as day. 'DUCK!'

"Rounds incoming. Land." Welsh warned Rockwell.

Rockwell smiled behind his helmets breather, this was the part he liked. Above him he watched as the three groups of three magnetically accelerated plasma came flying down from orbit at near relativistic speed. He could almost imagine the looks on the faces of the slavers working for the Goa'uld manning the guns of the buried Ha'tak class as they realized that their lives were about to end in one flaming and painless moment.

Rockwell couldn't help but smile as the half-buried ship seemed to flower open with blue petals of flame as the rounds from the Valliant plasma linear cannon impacted the reactor of the ship come base. Rocks spewed forth and the area which the ship in was in seemed to sag and then collapse as the structural integrality of the pyramid style ship were blown away.

"Scrub one! Target destroyed!" Rockwell reported a little two happily.

Inside the turret of his Laser RAT, Maxwell whooped as he saw the guns on the mountain sized ship disappear in a ball of plasma induced fire and rock. "That's it folks! Blow the gate and get those prisoners out of there people!"

-{[]}-

De-fold plus forty-eight minutes.

Above in space, Marauder had been fighting to keep his critically damaged craft on course for the last several minutes when his proximity alert finally began to scream at him. In front of him, point defense cannons were blazing away as he streaked towards his goal.

"That's right you Khyron spawn! You can scream all you want but this bitch is still going to go down your throat!"

The fighter began to vibrate more as the engines threatened to overload from the strain of going at max burn for so long. Of course, it didn't help that he kept taking the occasional round of energized plasma too. Seeing the bright lights and people ahead Marauder made his decision. "Alright, Archangel its time to go!" he said into the radio as he grasped the ejection system handle between his legs and yanked, hard, but nothing happened.

"Oh come on!" He complained as he heard the computer announcement.

"EJECTION SYSTEM ERROR! USE ALTERNATE SYSTEM!"

"Deculture!" He moaned as he reached behind his head to grab the backup ejection handle. Looking forward he saw that he was close to make out the two Jaffa in the docking bay's control room he was about to ram. "Time to go!"

Pulling the handle with all his might and hoping that the manual system still worked, he activated the ejection system and found himself rocketing away from the orbital tethers docking ring, as he tumbled over and over he was able to catch a glimpse of his disentergrating fighter hit as powerful as an old sledge-hammer anti-ship missile.

It was then that he blacked out but he did so with a satisfied smile on his face.

-{[]}-

De-fold plus one hour, fifteen minutes.

Kanan opened his eyes as the bright lights of the secondary landing bay of ARMD 1 washed over him, looking up he was able to see the human that went by the Tau'ri name of Kyle Rogers and the rebel Jaffa S'Kar both looking down at him.

"Don't worry Kanan, you're going to be fine, we are among friends." Rogers said as a medic loaded him onto a stretched and began to move him towards one of the ships secondary infirmaries.

"It is good that they are allied with the Tau'ri." S'Kar said as he grasped the Tok'ra's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "You are a hero to many this day."

Kanan shook his head weakly. "No… hero." He whispered.

"I would disagree." Hudson said from behind of him.

Looking up the Tok'ra agent saw Hudson for the first time standing there with a big smile on his face. "Every single one of the prisoners we have rescued from down there all say the same thing that you are of the Tok'ra and are brave and noble, a being that did everything you could to ensure their wellbeing. I would say that makes you a hero."

Kanan tried to respond, but was chocked up as tears came to his eyes. Seeing this S'Kar wiped them away from the man who was much a brother as Rogers was. Hudson nodded. "We will talk later sir. Right now I think you need some rest." He said turning to face the medic with the trio. "Keep me informed."

-{[]}-

Kusanagi stepped out of the troop compartment of the Argo transport, which she had hitched a ride on, to find herself in a familiar environment, one that she honestly thought that she wouldn't ever see again. "Motoko?"

She turned to see the astonished face of captain Jenny 'Angel' Revell, standing in front of her, instinctively she and the dozen other Sandline Galactic behind her, snapped to attention and saluted.

Angel ignored the salute, and in an uncharacteristic move pulled her into a bear like embrace. "We saw the Quarter go up over Lantea. We thought everyone was killed." She said.

"So did we." She replied, "I don't even remember getting into the escape pod. I just woke up from a comma several weeks later down in that prison camp."

Angel released the younger woman, who was wore a tactical officers uniform for the PMC group, and wiped away the single tear which had formed in his eye. "Well I for one am glad to have your crew here, no matter how, but I think I know someone who will be even happier."

"John? Where is he?" Kusanagi asked, almost too anxiously, much to the surprise of her small surviving crew members.

"He's on the SAR Argo which just landed. He took a bad hit apparently, but he should be ok."

Kusanagi didn't even bother to say anything as she broke away at a full on sprint to where the rescue Argo was slowly being pulled in, leaping onto the rear ramp and she pressed the hatch release and jumped inside to fine her cousin laid out on a stretcher, his legs bleeding despite the bacta-gel and his lips where a light shade of blue.

"What happened?" She demanded as she took a hold of his limp hand.

"He punched out," The flight medic replied, "he has multiple shrapnel wounds in his legs and is suffering the early stages of hypoxia from a leak in his suit. If we had been just thirty seconds…"

"John wake up!" Kusanagi said as she squeezed his hand.

Marauder slowly opened his eyes to the blinding light and the face of his cousin. He smiled upon seeing her. "I knew that I would find you here." He said, his voice a bare whisper. "I missed you… so… much."

Kusanagi smiled as teams began to flow down her face freely. "Your alive… you miserable Zentron jar head, we're both alive." Punching him gently in the arm.

"A… A… Alive?" Marauder stuttered out in shock.

"Yes slug head. We are on the Archangel."

"But… how?"

"Ma'am, we need to get him to sickbay as quickly as we can. He's still in danger."

Kusanagi nodded to the medic as she moved back a bit. "Don't worry about that now, just get some rest. We can talk later."

"Don't… leave." Marauder said as he passed out from the medication that he was on kicked in and the medic's loaded him on a stretcher for transport to the main sickbay.

"Don't worry." Kusanagi replied as they carried him out of the transport. "I am never letting you go."

-{[]}-

As the Archangel was finishing up with its rescue mission at Ptah's slave and research compound, the Minerva class Minerva and her two Acidalium class escorts, Voyager and Acidalium, were holding station above a planet which fell under the protected planets treaty which had fell under the protected planets treaty which had originally been signed by the Asgard Federation and the Goa'uld Empire, but since the defeat of Anubis nine months ago, they had taken up the slack, which was caused by the Replicators war against the Asgard, and while they were rebuilding their civilization, of patrolling the planets. It also helped that the ten Eternal Vigilance class surveillance ships, which had been found in the Charon shipyard, could effectively scan a ten thousand light year area with its long-range scanners, needed only a small crew of ten.

The planets which fell under the treaty were all within thirty thousand lightyears of Earth in the Orion Arm of the galaxy, compared to the vast majority of Goa'uld space which covered the rest of the galaxy. Ba'al, who was currently fighting against the combined might of the remaining seven system lords, led by Yu, and was winning thanks to his use of technology salvaged from the shipyards used by Anubis he had decided to test the threat that the rising star of the Tau'ri posed by sending an attack force of several of his Anubis class Ha'tak's against their forces to see how strong their defenses truly were, and his target was the agrarian would of K'Tau.

"Hyperspace window opening at orange twenty-seven, ma'am." Major Arthur Trine reported as five large purplish blue tinted hyperspace windows appeared in space ahead of the patrol group. "Reading ten Anubis class Ha'tak motherships and four Al'kesh emerging from hyperspace."

"Alright here we go," Colonel Talia Gladys said as the bridge lowered into its armored bunker. "Raise shields, activate all weapons and set level one battlestations throughout the ship. Flash our escorts then open up a channel."

"Channel open ma'am." Trine said after moving to the forward weapons control station.

"This is colonel Talia Gladys of the Tau'ri defense force patrol group vessel Minerva to Goa'uld craft, you are violating the space of a protected planet. Withdraw now or face the consequences." Gladys said imagining that she was dealing with favorite fictional race, the Klingons, not that she would ever admit to anyone that she was a Trekkie.

"No response ma'am." Trine said after a minute. "They are locking weapons on us." He added, returning the favor.

"Helm, take us right at them, military thrust." Gladys ordered, "Arthur lock Tannhäuser on the lead mothership and fire a spread of the new sledge hammers at the Al'kesh."

The Minerva shot forward, its size half that of the Ha'tak's, and opened her missile lunch tubes while here escorts opened fire at long with their own positron cannons. The Ha'tak's fired first, throwing bolts of plasma at the approaching battle-carrier and her destroyer escorts. The bolts struck the Minerva's forward shields and a second later four emerald green beams from her twin barreled XM47 'Tristan' type Gottfried's and a dark purplish red beam from her single bow QZX-1 'Tannhäuser' class positron cannon lanced out from her gun ports.

The green beams quickly slammed into the shields of the Ha'tak's to the side of the lead one, before hitting their power cores, just as the three positron cannons hit the lead one and end ones of the formation bright orange shields before they died, though there appeared to be very damage to their hulls. A second later six large sledge hammer anti-ship missiles from the battle-carriers ventral missile launch tubes. The missiles soon struck the Al'kesh and destroyed them in massive fire balls which were snuffed out quickly in the vacuum of space.

"Enemy ships are intensifying their fire." Trine reported, as the ship started to shake from the impact of so many weapons.

"Fire the upgraded Isolde at the ship at green thirty-two point five delta and launch a spread of the class three Dispar's at the rest. Let's just hope that these Asgard designed shields are as good as they say." Gladys ordered as a hit near the bridge caused her to almost fall out of her chair.

Plasma bolts splashed across the Minerva's shields almost every second, not even giving it a chance to recharge even as the M10 Isolde 50cm triple railgun angled to hit the designated ship, after a second, the neck mounted weapon fired a salvo of the new Lucifer rounds a significant amount of the speed of light and blew through the targeted ship and into the one behind, tearing both into small suns a moment later.

Just as this happened, the remaining four Ha'tak's weapons fire started to bleed through the Minerva's shields and strike her composite laminated armored hull. The small battle-carrier angled slightly and fired a full spread of eight Wombat anti-ship missiles at them. The missiles quickly sped through space and slammed against the orange shields of the four motherships, destroying them and their generators with one volley.

"The Ha'tak's shields are gone." Trine reported as his console started to spark.

"Fire all weapons." Gladys said as she grabbed the fire extinguisher from under her chair to put out the fir that had sprung up by the rear plot table.

The Minerva unlashed a miniature version of a missile massacre and beam halo at the unshielded Ha'tak's. the motherships attempted to shot down the missiles but were unable to due to their size and number, and several hit each of the motherships. The naquadah enhanced weapons slammed into the hulls and engulfed the four ships in potassium and reflex fire.

"Targets have been neutralized ma'am." Trine reported as a medic came on to the bridge to see to an injured helmsman.

"Secure from level one battlestations." Gladys said sitting back in her command chair, "Contact Homeworld command. Tel them we've intercepted and destroyed ten Ha'tak and four Al'kesh in the K'Tau system, then get me a damage report."

"Message sent ma'am." Reported the comm-officer Meyrin Hawke as the bridge returned to its normal location.

"What do we do now colonel?" Trine asked as the two destroyers destroyed the last of the gliders that had prevented them from helping against the Ha'tak's.

"We were lucky that it was only ten Ha'tak's Arthur." Gladys said shaking her head. "Have the marines put together a few boarding parties, and get them looking over those ships to find out which one keia o na snakeheads that collectively call themselves the 'System Lords' these junk heaps belonged to."

"Yes ma'am." Trine responded, knowing that the colonel was beyond pissed due to her slipping into her native Hawaiian.

-{[]}-

"Incoming wormhole!" Harriman's voice announced over the SGC's base wide intercom, as the gate activated with its characteristic kawoosh of unstable energy before settling down into the stable event horizon.

"Walter?" O'Neill asked as he came down the stairs from the briefing room above the control room with Hudson, who had arrived with a massive battle-station, which doubled as a dry dock for the Archangel that was currently docked and under repair from some damage that she had received somehow, to stand behind Harriman at the controls.

"We're receiving an IDC sirs." He said as the bases computer decoded the coded signal. "It's the Tok'ra."

"The Tok'ra? I wonder what they want." O'Neill said as he rolled his eyes from multiple headaches that they had given him, and SG1, even as he gave his go ahead to open the iris making a note to grab some aspirin from the base infirmary later. A few seconds later Selmak/ Carter and a woman stepped through the event horizon before the gate shut down. Seeing that there was no danger O'Neill and Hudson walked down the side stairwell and into the embarkation room.

"Jack?" Selmak/ Carter grinned as he stepped off the ramp that lead to the gate's event horizon section. "Where's George? I thought that he was in charge around here last time I checked in."

"He's in command of the home fleet from the Command station in orbit." O'Neill replied with a smirk. "The president personally gave him command of the Prometheus and her task force when Anubis' fleet attacked nine months ago."

"Home… home fleet, so the rumors are true after all." The woman next to them spoke in the normal double flange voice of both the Tok'ra and the Goa'uld as she stepped off the end of the ramp. "The Tau'ri do indeed possess the ability to manufacture space capable battleships and orbital battlestations of their own now?"

"I'm sorry but you are?" O'Neill asked, almost certain that he had never met this lady before.

"Jaydin of the Tok'ra high council." The woman responded with a slight bow of her head.

"Well in that case… welcome to Earth, but I'm guessing that this isn't a social call." Hudson said having dealt with Selmak/ Carter several times over the last eight-teen months.

"Yes and no." Selmak/ Carter said answering the Zentron commodore just as the stargate began to activate once more.

"Unscheduled off world activation." Harriman once more announced over the public address system, as the iris reclosed over the gate half a second after it activated. "We're receiving Bra'tac's IDC." He said a moment later.

"Open the iris." O'Neill ordered and the first line of defense for attack through the gate retracted for the second time in as many minutes, and it didn't take a genius to work out that something major was going on out in the universe. "Any ideas what this could be about?" He asked the other three just as Bra'tac stepped through the gate with Teal'c. "Welcome back to Earth Bra'tac, T."

"O'Neill." Teal'c said bowing his head slightly in respect for the man who was his battle brother.

"Hammond of Texas hasn't returned yet O'Neill?" Bra'tac inquired, causing Selmak, O'Neill and Hudson to smirk, as he stepped off the embarkation ramp.

"He currently commands a battle station and the home fleet." O'Neill replied just as he had a few moments ago to Selmak and Jaydin. "Now is someone going to tell me what's going on that it has brought the lot of you here, before I have a headache."

Jaydin was the first to speak. "I am afraid that it concern the state of the Goa'uld Empire."

"I shouldn't be surprised that the Tok'ra know." Bra'tac said nodding in agreement. "I'm afraid that I must once again be the conveyor of bad news, our allies in the Jaffa resistance have learned that Ba'al has defeated the forces of the remaining System Lords, he now has his sights on destroying the Tau'ri and all of those that stand with them."

O'Neill simply stared for a few seconds, pinching the bridge of his nose, sub-concisely muttering in Alteran without realizing, before he came out of his stupor. "I think we need to take this to the briefing room."

-{[]}-

"We knew that this was going to happen." O'Neill said as he and Hudson sat in his office, after several hours of talking with both Bra'tac and the Tok'ra about the size of Ba'al's forces now that he had effectively taken on the title of 'Supreme System Lord,' to the comm-unit on his desk to his friend and mentor. "It's not like this unexpected gen… George, I mean not after the Minerva defended the K'Tau system two days ago we all know that it was Ba'al who ordered the raid."

"Very well, send them up to the command station and I'll talk with them up here. I've got a meeting with the president in a few minutes so I'll have Davis give them a tour of the station and meet with them later." Hammond said over the link sounding tired.

"Alright I'll send them up on the next transport from Peterson, by the way care to tell me how you did you put up with all this?" O'Neill asked leaving out about SG1 and SG3 antic's and the less said about SG5's improvisation skills with explosives the better.

"One day at a time Jack, one day at a time." Hammond replied with a chuckle before the line went dead as the connection was cut. As O'Neill and Hudson regained their wits at the comments from the former commander of the SGC and first commander of the newly created Homeworld Command, the pair begin to head off to the mess hall on level twenty-two when Harriman's voice sounded again.

As the pair turn to head back from the lift they see the defense teams rushing into embarkation room to man the fixed weapons in the room. In the control room Carter is sitting next to Harriman as the last chevron locked in and the gate activated behind the iris, before shutting down seconds later, seeing that they had received a compressed data file she begins to un-compress it.

"Who's it from?" Harriman asks, refraining from leaning over to have a look for himself.

"Atlantis." Carter says in complete surprise and shocking the senior non-com. There had been no word from the mission to the Pegasus galaxy nine months ago when they had left. Carter quickly transfers the file to an iPad and almost runs up the stairs to O'Neill's office after reading only the first page of the file, as she leaves the control room Harriman leans over to take a look at the file, before beginning to make call to his counterpart up on the Command station to begin getting ready for a heavy transfer of equipment soon.

When she reaches the top of the stairs, she hears O'Neill talking with Hudson about the upgrades that the Archangel had done as well why they had rescued the prisoners from that planet, and what plans they had to upgrade the entire Minerva and Drake classes of the fleet. There were plans to expand the fleet of Minerva class and increase the amount of firepower that the class carried. The new ones, Minerva, Athena and Orion, all carried advanced Asgard technology which was coupled with Zentradi and Tau'ri systems. They even included Zentradi style food synthesizers in the mess hall and a pair of industrial size ones in the hanger deck, which could make anything from a full replacement weapons back to hull plating.

Even Carter was impressed by how deadly lieutenant Cochrane's computer simulations had been when it showed how powerful their already powerful 'Tristan' class Gottfried beam cannons would be when powered by the newer Vibranium/ naquadah arc reactors. As well as the limited amount of, though still old by the standards of the Archangel's crew, newer Robotech hardware, like the ADR-03-MkIII Cheyenne class destroid, which had helped upgrade the computer systems, life support and sensor systems to allow for more detailed spatial readings.

"Carter?" O'Neill said, his voice breaking through the fog of her thoughts and snapping her back to reality.

"It was Atlantis sir." Carter said using her thumb to point down at the now inactive gate.

"Well what did it say?" O'Neill asks as Hudson raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"I don't know sirs." She admitted as she hands over the iPad to O'Neill.

"You don't know?" O'Neill asks dumbfounded that Carter would even admit that.

"Well, it is a compressed file. It's got hours of videos and thousands of pages of text within it." Carter explains as O'Neill begins to reach for the aspirin in his BDU's top pocket.

"It must have a cover sheet or contents page to get you to run up the stairs like that colonel?" Hudson says as O'Neill's face begins to drain of its colour from what he is reading.

"They are in trouble sirs." Carter says nodding to the iPad in O'Neill's hands.

It took them another hour to brief Hudson and come up with a solution to the problem. The last ships that where slated to join 'Taskforce Atlantis' were still under construction in the construction slips around the world, meaning that only three of the ships where ready. The Archangel, after completing repairs would tow the Minerva and her two sisters, Daedalus and Orion, to Pegasus within the next few days, their holds all filled to bursting with supplies for the mission, while the Orion would carry two dozen of the Tau'ri built Cheyenne class anti-air destroids that had been built by Chrysler Defense, while the other two carried her compliment of Starmax and Star wolf's.

While the four ships raced across space, a multi-national military contingent and an elite team from the Archangels MACO's and devil Squad, plus a force of fifty combat engineers would gate to Atlantis, using the ZPM's from the a dig in Egypt, to begin installing various weapons banks and other defensive technology to Atlantis. The city would be the best defended that the extra galactic city complex could be.

The rescue operation would be launched as soon as all of the supplies and other necessary resources from bases and store warehouses across the planet and Charon station could be loaded up ready for transport.


	16. Chapter 15 The Siege of Atlantis

**Chapter 15: The Siege of Atlantis**

The newest ship in the Earths growing homegrown fleet burst out of a hyperspace window back into normal space, after four months of deep space exploration and excavation of various Alteran artifacts from the outposts that hadn't been discovered by the Goa'uld, all over the local cluster of star systems, the small Tau'ri built Argama explorer class, that the design team behind it had based on the Argama from the Gundam franchise. When they had been asked about it by general's Hammond and O'Neill they had merely point to a wall at the rear of the design lab that held everything related to the Japanese show created in the late seventies and early eighties with a sheepish grin. The ship had finally made its way to a nebular that Thor had mentioned to SG1 on the return trip from Ida after destroying the replicators. It was worth investigating to say the least so they had been dispatched by homeworld command with order to search for anything which was out of the ordinary.

And they had found something alright.

"Major… what are we looking at?" Asked colonel Millard Johnson of the Athena as he stared out the forward transparent Trinium windows.

"I believe that it is a space station sir." Major Myung Lone said as she looked over the sensor and LIDAR returns on her display.

"That's one hell of a space station." The ships CAG, major Isamu Dyson, commented as he looked at the station that was just entering into visual range.

It was massive, clearly larger than the battle station that the Archangel had shown up with the day before they had left on their mission started and appeared to look like a long cylinder with a slightly larger one rotating counter to the main one with six large arms arrayed just behind the two rotating sections. The most striking feature of the station was the two large cannons, at least the bridge crew thought they were cannons, running the length of the stations rotating central section, and what looked like a control tower stretching out with a several ships that appeared to be larger cousins of Magellanic heavy cruisers hard docked to it. The helm officer quietly guided the Athena towards the station, as the bridge crew took note that even though the stations lights and rotational sections where working no one was home.

"So that's Arcadia," Jackson mused as he looked over the massive Alteran construction, "I remember Thor telling me about it on the way back after the last battle with the replicators. He said it as a kind of diplomatic station but was armed enough to act as a battle station if attacked." Jackson explained.

"That central tower looks similar to the main tower back at Charon station but it also appears have been modified. I'm also detecting a hyper-drive and massive ion thrusters… this thing definitely wasn't built here sir." A crewman said from the rear of the bridge.

"I know that the Alterans did things big but man… I didn't expect something of this scale and they just left it out here for anyone to find. Where is everyone?" Dyson asked, expecting to find at least one or two Ha'tak's near the station.

"We learnt a few years ago that they left this galaxy when they encountered some form of plague… maybe the station was infected and they abandoned it rather than risk spreading the infection further." Jackson said, remembering the report from one of the SG teams that had discovered a woman frozen in the ice near the outpost in Antarctica that he had read from his time as an Ascended.

"Okay, doctor Jackson and first recon suit up and get set for deployment. You're going over there." Johnson ordered as Jackson seemed to actually fly out of the bridge heading for the ships hanger deck.

-{[]}-

Six columns of light sprung into existence on the main deck in front of a large window that looked out over the forward rotating section of the main body of the station and deposited the members of the Athena's first recon team and doctor Jackson. After quickly securing the area doctor Jackson checked the area with his suits scanners, the device had been designed by general O'Neill of all people, allowed ship based and SG teams to scan an area, which easily notified him that the area was safe and that their was no toxins.

"It's clean." He said as he took off his helmet and placed it upon its clip on his backpack.

"Strange." Dyson said as he looked around the room, "After all the reports I've seen these last few months I was expecting something different." There were a number of panels and control stations scattered around the room.

"The control station is this way." Jackson said as he moved up the stairs on the left side of the room.

They came to a large balcony with a control chair, similar to the one found in the outpost one Earth, with a large two level wrap around viewscreen that covered most of the ceiling.

"Is that it?" the leader of the recon team asked pointing his P-90 in its direction.

"I think so," Dyson nodded and approached the console. "It's in Alteran." He said after a moment as a series of symbols appeared on the hologram by the doors.

"It reads, 'Command and Control' with a name of the station underneath, 'Arcadia'." Jackson translated.

"Hold up a second," The teams tech said and the display turned into English. "That's it, I've plugged colonel Carters new universal translator in and I'm running diagnostics of the main systems now sir."

"Lieutenant?" Jackson asked.

"If I'm reading this right sir," The young lieutenant said in complete surprise. "then this entire station has a stargate manufacturing factory and ZPM generation station as well as controlling the entire Milky Way galaxy. It's not just that … according to this we've hit the jackpot, we have the location of every single gate in the galaxy." The lieutenant said pointing to a hologram of the galaxy which had appeared in front of them, blue dots appearing throughout the hologram connected by a web of connections and strings.

"Athena to doctor Jackson, come in." Johnson asked over the team's comm-link.

""We read you sir." Jackson replied.

""What's your status?" The colonel asked.

"Colonel we've secured the command center and I think that we can take this station with us to through hyperspace, maybe all the way back to Earth." Dyson replied looking around at the control stations and seeing a station that was labeled as Helm.

"… Alright set the course and make it fast. I highly doubt we can hang around here for long like this." Johnson said, "I've sent a data burst back to homeworld command about the find. Athena out." Johnson gave the final order before the channel closed.

"I'm activating the stations transit mode now." Dyson said as he looked over the commands on the screen at the helm station.

"Do we have enough power to make the jump?" Jackson asked watching as the hologram of the galaxy change to one of the station reconfiguring the aft section for travel by retracting the heat exchange and emergency solar collectors close to the hull.

"It seems that the station is powered by ten ZPMs." The technician explained as he looked over the readings at the engineering station, "It looks like the station is also equipped with solar panels of some kind which then transfer the gathered from the local sun and feeds it directly into the stations ZPMs reactors keeping them fully charged."

"It seems that this place is a bit more advanced than Anoke station or the outpost in Antarctica." Jackson said.

"I agree sir … according to the schematics I've also detected a full ZPM construction plant onboard the station with nearly ten thousand fully charged ZPMs. This must have been a major construction plant for ZPMs," The technician mused aloud, "but that still doesn't explain why it was abandoned, especially when the plague broke out on it … I mean why would the just leave it floating out here in a nebular if it was so important to them?"

"Those completed ZPMs could come in handy at the very least." Dyson quipped as the solar arms closed with a slight clang against the hull.

"That's od sir …" Said one of the marines by the forward windows as an alert pooped up on them.

""What is it corporal?" Dyson asked suddenly serious.

"Another ship is approaching at sub-light speed." The young corporal said, pointing out the window.

"The Athena is the only ship this far out." Jackson said knowing that most of the fleet was being kept in the Sol system and that the Zentradi had returned with a station that they could dock with that doubled as a dry dock before they had left on this mission.

"It's not one of ours." Dyson said as he brought up an image of the ship on the main viewscreen of the command deck while blast shutters dropped over the windows automatically, in response to the station detecting a ship of a known enemy.

-{[]}-

"Unknown contact entering sensor range sir." The comm-scan officer reported bringing up an image of the unknown on the main overhead screen.

Beside one of the larger asteroids that had drifted into the nebular over the millennia since the station was last used. It was roughly twice the size of a Ha'tak, and looked like a cross between a an Aurora class and a Ha'tak, the unknown warship turned slightly and accelerated towards Arcadia and the orbiting Athena at a speed which was impressive for a ship of that size.

"Hail them." Johnson ordered getting a sudden bad feeling about it.

"No response sir." The comm-officer said, "Energy spike!"

"Raise shields and take evasive action!" Johnson ordered, hating that his gut had been right once again.

From the end of one of the unknown's larger pods a condensed beam of highly accelerated metal encased in a plasma shell was launched, the metal plasma shells slashed against the Asgard Zentradi hybrid shields of the Athena, knocking the three hundred twenty-three meter exploration ship to the side a hundred meters off her previous course.

"Shields are down to sixty-seven percent, hyper drive has been damaged and several secondary sub-systems are offline." Someone shouted over the din of a sparking console.

"Send a message to the survey team and tell them to get that station into hyperspace as soon as they can. We'll hold off the hostile ship." Johnson ordered, "Helm full power to the engines take us right at them and fire the main gun."

The Athena veered away from the enormous space station and shot off towards the massive alien ship which had opened fire on them at half the speed of light. The unknown fired again, the Athena shifted her thrust at the last second to allowing the shot to flow over the bridge. The Athena then changed course seemingly at random and opened fire with her single bow mounted Gottfried sending a single beam of green compressed energy at the hostile ship only for it to splash harmlessly against a large purple energy shield.

"Their shields are holding." Someone said, "There was a slight fluctuation in their shield grid but not enough for our weapons to breach."

"Who are these people?" Johnson asked worriedly.

"We are receiving a transmission from the ship sir, audio only."

"Open a channel!"

"Hoc est mori vel relinquere numnc sacri." The dark voice spoke over the comm-link despite it having a built in translator designed by colonel Carter.

"This is colonel Johnson of the Tau'ri vessel Athena we are peaceful explorers, why have you attacked us?"

"Tau'ri nimia. Habemus autem nomen Alpha et Omega, quod pertinet dixeris, simpliciter sunt!"

"You have committed an act of aggression against the Tau'ri, withdraw now or you will be fired upon." Johnson said trying to bluff this hostile.

"Fiduciam autem stultitiam. Sanctificate in destructionem." The voice said closing the channel abruptly.

"How is our team doing?" Johnson asked as the ship shuck from another near miss.

"The stations hyper drive is activating now sir."

"Helm set course for Earth, and engage the hyper drive, get us the hell out of here!" Johnson practically screamed as another near miss shook the ship as it turned sharply and accelerated toward her own hyperspace window, quickly disappearing into sub-space on course for the Sol system as the Athena dodged and weaved around the purple beams of plasma and metal which was fired at it. The unknown followed the smaller Tau'ri explorer as it disappeared into hyper-space.

In the Wolf 359 system, Arcadia station reverted back to normal space followed quickly by the Athena, which turned so that it was facing towards Sol, some 7.795 light years away, as her on board navigational computers recalculated her course.

As the computers finished there corrections the unknown ship reverted back to normal space behind them.

"All aft weapons fire at will!" Johnson ordered his tactical officer who unleashed the full aft facing armament towards the unknown. Two seconds later sledgehammer missiles, rail guns and low powered Gottfried shots from the point defense cannons on the aft of the ship. It all struck the shields of the unknown but nothing seemed to get through the purple shields of the unknown.

"Their shields are fluctuating but I don't see any significant damage sir." A comm-scan officer announced. The hostile returned fire from all eight of its cannon pods mounted at the front of the ship, hitting the Athena's shields at amidships pushing the ship sideways and the energy bleeding through to hit the laminated hull armor. "Shields down to fifteen percent and we have a hull breach on the flight deck. We won't survive another hit sir."

"Get us back into hyperspace NOW!" Johnson screamed.

The Arcadia station was the first to re-jump followed quickly by the Athena making the short hyperspace jump to mars orbit, the unknown appeared a second later directly in front of the Athena firing several pulses of plasma as well as the beams of hyper accelerated metal in plasma completely collapsing the shields on the exploration ship and destroying one of her secondary hanger decks.

"Shields are gone!" Shouted someone on the bridge as the ship rocked from the explosion of the secondary hanger.

"Communications send a message to earth and tell them about our situation. Advisee that we may need surface based fire support!" Johnson ordered as the helm officer, first lieutenant Guld Goa Bowman, danced around the incoming fire as best he could in the wounded explorer.

"I've got twelve hyperspace windows opening at green twenty-one delta!" A comm-scan officer said.

The space in front of the Athena tore open in to a dozen purplish blue hyperspace windows and deposited the whole complement of the home fleet's Minerva class battle carriers and the newly finished Mississippi class dreadnought, Mississippi, all moved to attack the hostile intruder.

"Colonel, message from the Mississippi. It's general Hammond." The comm-officer said, slightly in shock.

"Colonel, I thought that I told you and doctor Jackson 'not' to start any fights." Hammond said in his usual tone, that all of the SGC knew meant he was joking, since he had expected the Athena to have trouble due to the curse of SG1 and doctor Jackson.

"Sorry sir." Johnson said replacing the fire-fighting gear in its charging station. "Sir I owe you a beer for this."

"Make it a keg … we'll deal with star destroyer knock off. Mississippi out." Hammond said and the channel closed as the high powered Gottfried shots flew around the explorer to hit the enemy ship.

The large ship, unknown to the Earth forces was a ship belonging to the ancient enemy of the Alterans, quickly realized the threat that fleet in front of it was and opened fire on the fleet. Two beams stuck the shields of the Chinese Minerva Sung and the Japanese Takanami while another two grazed the Daedalus and Nelson. In response the twelve ships fired their Gottfried cannons at once but the powerful shields of the ship held shrugging off the barrage.

"The hostile doesn't appear to taking any damage." A cadet sensor technician said, "Its shields are incredibly powerful, more so than our own Vibranium naquadah arc reactors provide to the Asgard/ Zentron shields at one moment. Sensor logs show that they are generating fifty times the power of the Archangel's main gun."

"It has got to have a weakness somewhere!" Johnson said holding on to his chair as the ship rocked from another near miss.

Again the unknown fired this time concentrating solely on the French crewed Forbin with all sixteen of its cannons. The attack was too much for her shields to handle and they collapsed allowing a single beam of plasma and hyper accelerated metal to slice through the hull and hit her fuel stores. The force of the explosion was enough to destroy the battle carrier with all hands, its laminated Trinium armor doing nothing to reduce the power behind the attack.

"Colonel I think I found something." The cadet sensor technician called out. "Those fluctuations in the shield grid of the hostile ship are a result of them compensating for the fleets assault on it, when it does a gap appears at the rear section of the shield grid during this time, it is barely two centimeters wide sir."

"That's too small for anything to get through." Johnson said pointing out a slight flaw.

"Yes sir, but more than enough to get a lock with the transporters." The cadet countered. "I can override the failsafe's in the system and send a mark VIII warhead over onto their ship."

"… Do it!" Johnson ordered.

The ship fired again, this time hitting the Mississippi amidships, pushing her off course and causing a small mark on her pristine hull as some of the energy from the combined impact of the three beams. The Ontario and Apollo swung around to hit the ship from the flanks firing a barrage of rounds from their Gottfried's, Isolde and Tannhäuser cannons.

"I have a lock!"

"Now."

Half a second later the bow of the unknown ship exploded from inside as the mark VIII naquadah enhanced warhead detonated, the force of the explosion bouncing off the shields and redirected back on to the ship and engulfing the dorsal section of the ship. The Athena quickly turned to fire her single bow mounted Gottfried as the unknowns shields flickered and then died. The Ontario and Apollo formed up alongside the Athena as they cautiously approached the now heavily damaged alien warship, before the Minerva's fired a double salvo of depleted uranium rounds at it.

The twelve rounds from the 50cm Isolde cannons tore through her armor like a brick through a plate glass window. As the three ships shot past it, numerous secondary explosions began to spread across the hull before its main reactor went critical destroying her completely.

"Sanctificetur sunt Ori!" Was screamed out over the comm-lines as the ship exploded and a large chunk into the Athena from behind and tearing off a radiation deflector, causing her to spin wildly for several seconds her aft quarter on fire before Bowman managed to compensate for the lost deflector and a sub-light engine. Johnson and several others were thrown from their seats as a fire broke out where Johnsons chair was and the Athena began to drift. Johnson coughed and tried to stand only to find his left leg gone from the knee down.

"The hostile has been destroyed sir." Bowman reported as he and several others dealt with the fire while a medic started to treat Johnson.

"Get me a damage report!" Johnson said as the medic hit him an auto injector of pain killers.

"Ten dead, fifteen wounded seven seriously. We've lost the port side radiation deflector and the port side engines." Bowman said looking at the damage control board, "(05 of the secondary systems are fried and we've lost weapons control … luckily the main sub-light drive is still functional."

"And the home fleet." Johnson asked becoming woozy due to the medication that the medic had given him starting to work.

"Not as bad as us sir." Bowman said. "Message coming in from Earth now … Arcadia has assumed orbit over earth, we are to dock as Malta defense station for repairs."

"What about that star destroyer knock off? I doubt … command is going to leave the remains up here?" Johnson said slurring his words a bit.

"The Airtimes, fifth squadron of the Starmax corps and our sister ship, the Argama, are moving to begin salvage and study operations." Bowman replied.

"… Okay then … set course for Earth best speed … and lieutenant … take command until we … dock." Johnson said passing out from the pain and medication.

As the Athena limped towards Earth orbit escorted by the Apollo and half a dozen Acidalium class destroyers that had arrived after the battle, just in case the crew needed to be evacuated. Bowman couldn't help but feel that this was only the start of something which no one could have expected, that ship had attacked them unprovoked was clearly the vanguard of some unknown force, which probable meant that their where more of them on the way and they would have to work out some way of stopping them or the whole galaxy would have to face the consequences.

-{[]}-

In orbit on the recently recovered Arcadia station, after a journey back to the surface because of an alert when the Excalibur had returned from patrol early with a malfunctioning IFF transponder, the diplomatic modified Starmax transport finished its docking. As major Davis led the group out of the docking bay the two marines snapped to attention as he waved them off.

"What is this place?" Jaydin asked, suddenly worried for her safety, but still looking around with wide eyes.

"Arcadia station." Davis said as he lead the group into the docking bays observation deck which over looked the cargo stabilizers, that had original thought to have been cannons, where the Minerva was docked taking on supplies for her mission to Atlantis as a pair of Star Wolf star fighter's landed in her open linear catapult, while the Earth hung in the background.

"How… how the hell can you hide something like this while in plain view of the entire world?" Selmak asked clearly stunned at what he could see. "I … I … mean where in orbit of Earth, anyone with even a reasonably priced pair of binoculars can see this place!"

"Why would we hide it sir?" Davis asked politely of retired major general as he directed the group towards a door that lead deeper into that station to continue the short tour before their meeting with the newly established high-command. "The entire planet knows about it." He replied with a small smile."

"You… you… you… you mean that… everything has been disclosed… everything?" The retired general said, hyperventilating and grabbing hold of the nearby hand rail to prevent him falling down with shock.

"Yes sir, we were left with no choice sir." Davis nodded in reply.

"What happened?" Selmak asked having taken over control of his host's body while he recovered from this new discovery about his home world.

"It wasn't that bad … having the home fleet and the ZSMF Archangel in orbit helped to keep the masses calm, still North Korea and the Middle East made some noise for a few months, but it's quietened down in the last few weeks, and the presence of the fleet has reassured everyone that we 'can' defend ourselves from any threat, both foreign and domestic." Davis explained the current planetary situation as the group entered a travel tube which Davis directed to the forum. "I'll admit sir, that it could have been a whole lot worse, but once the initial shock of the attack by Anubis wore off and we started to introduce some of the less advanced technology that has been gained through the project over the years directly into the general population. These days the nations of Earth are moving more towards a single world government which controls all of the off-world bases and the SGC."

"Where did you acquire the resources for the building of a station of this size? The Goa'uld do not have the resources to construct something of this scale." Bra'tac commented as the transport tube began to pass through the massive internal garden of the station.

"It was discovered by abandoned one of our explore class ships in the Eagle nebula, and brought here, apparently they had to defend themselves from a ship that looked like a Ha'tak crossed with a star destroyer from star wars."

"Where exactly are we being taken?" Selmak asked, as Jacob Carter's mind was still in shook, as the transport tube opened onto the gardens.

"Station operations," Davis said as he again lead the group through the gardens back towards the command and control section of the station by the docking area that they had used to board the station, "It is where general Hammond's office is located."

-{[]}-

"It never rains but it pours." Muttered general O'Neill in the control room of the SGC as he watched the marines, combat engineers and a platoon of MACO's from the Archangel's own compliment began to step through the gate with crate after crate of combat supplies to aid in the defense of Atlantis from the three Wraith hive ships which were approaching the massive city ship, with the intent to destroy the last known fortress class colony ship.

The defense force was taking enough ammunition to last for three years-worth of continues battle, freeing up the much needed space in the three battle carriers being sent with the Archangel, as well as the new anti-air railguns which had been set for the next squadron of Acidalium class, and where designed to punch through the armor of a Goa'uld death gliders and Al'kesh, so it was hoped that they would work on the Wraith's fighters as well.

As he stood silently watching as more and more personnel moved through the gate for Atlantis, including the four members of Devil squad and the five members of the newly commissioned Ghost squad, using mark one versions of the equipment used by the Zentradi team, that they were going to their deaths.

-{[]}-

Colonel Steven Caldwell, the newly assigned commander of the Tau'ri contingent of taskforce Atlantis smiled as he looked around the bridge of the Daedalus. The clean but advanced room buzzed with activity as the crew and engineers checked and re-checked everything on the ship, and her two sister ships Minerva and Orion, to make sure that everything was working at a hundred percent and if it wasn't then it was replaced with an entirely new unit, nothing was being left to chance.

Caldwell had been in command of the Daedalus since the battle of earth against Anubis forces a year ago and knew most of the crew personal quirks, but had only worked with the captains of the Minerva and Orion twice before this mission, but was impressed with how their crews work. Unlike when his ship had been launched in the rush to defend the Earth, the Daedalus and all other Minerva class battle carriers had be retro-fitted with the more powerful 50cm triple rail cannon 'Isoldes' which had been developed for the Mississippi class, along with the newer combat tracking systems. These upgrades as well as the additional sixty CIWS arrays and new sledge hammer anti-ship missiles made the Minerva class one deadly class of ships.

Both the Minerva and Orion matched her in every aspect, even down to the pair of industrial size synthesizers in their hangers and mess hall, meant that the battle carriers could be deployed for up to ten years before having to return to base for a resupply, or at least that was commands plan, so they were more or less completely self-sustaining.

Rumors were circulating that the new high command where going to be sending a number of industrial synthesizers to Atlantis once the current crisis was dealt with to save having at least one ship travelling between Zion and Earth on supply runs, and it made perfect sense to those dinosaurs in the I.O.A.

"Sir." Major Kevin Marks said, snapping Caldwell out of his thoughts.

"Yes Marks" Caldwell replied turning to form the plot table face his ships XO.

"The SGC reports that the last of the ground element have gone through the gate to Atlantis sir."

"Good, have we received launch clearance and has the Orion got the ZPM's for Atlantis from Arcadia?"

"Yes sir." The comm-officer replied, "The last of the yard engineers have left and the hanger deck reports it's secure."

"Good, contact the Archangel and move into formation with them and secure all systems for hyperspace." Caldwell ordered smiling as he took his seat while the rest of the bridge crew moved to their assigned stations for the three battle carriers took up flanking positions around the Archangel.

As the four ships moved out of the gravity well of Earth the Archangel expanded her hyperspace fold field so it encompassed all the ships, before stretching and disappearing into a purplish blue cloud of a hyperspace window on its three day journey to Zion.

"Sir. Message from the Archangel, ETA to Atlantis is a little under three days." Marks said looking at the power readings from the Archangel on his sensor display.

"That's amazing. Hopefully once this crisis is over and we return to earth, we could get one of them the Daedalus and her engines." Caldwell said referring to the ZPMs that had been found on Arcadia station when it was recovered last month.

"Yes sir." Marks replied as he thought about the increase it would give the Tristan's and Tannhäuser cannons.

"I'll level with somewhat though major." Caldwell said leaning over towards Marks slightly as the blue green wash of hyperspace bathed the bridge, "I'm not one hundred percent with leaving Earth without a few extra guards, what with the Prometheus battle group somewhere, it only leaves the home fleet and they may need the backup of the Archangel's big gun."

"Yes sir, but the new orbital defense grid is nearly complete, and looking at the defense grid on both the Zentradi station and Arcadia I doubt even that star destroyer knock would survive, plus the Antarctic outpost and Helicarrier fleet." Marks replied recalling how thousands of plasma drones had defeated Anubis's fleet.

"Right." Caldwell answered facing a smile as an enlisted marine sergeant came up to him with a ship interfaced iPad.

The three Minerva class battle carriers and the Archangel all cruised through the sub-space domain, heading for the Pegasus galaxy. The three Tau'ri ships where a new breed, built for war and exploration, and would accomplish great feats in the years to come.

-{[]}-

"Alright Felger you've got ten minutes, make this good." General O'Neill said as he entered the only lab that most of the SGC avoided more than Jackson and Carters, after watching the last of the ground element for taskforce Atlantis through the gate.

"General O'Neill good to see you again, we … we've come up with a suggestion on how to increase our stocks of materials to build up the fleet. Going through the records of the SGC missions trying to find somewhere which has a large amount of minerals and ores, since with the help of the Asgard we've stabilized the orbit of the asteroid that Anubis throw at us and 'Mother lode' has been tapped by the new TDF the supply of naquadah will begin to flow soon enough, we have however with the help of the Charon stations AI gained a lead on a massive amounts of Trinium, Iridium, platinum, palladium and other rare earths relatively quickly."

"For once Felger you have me interested. Where in the records is it that you and your team have found this 'supply' of resource?"

Tapping on the nearby computer he activated the nearby wall mounted screen which showed a map of the galaxy divide into four distinct sections with the first four letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha, beta, gamma and delta along with stargates in blue, red or yellow depending on the relations towards earth. After a second or two a window at the side of opened with a highly detailed yet complicated and familiar diagram scan of a planet with several areas shaded in silver or blue and a string of stargate spatial coordinates came up under the text box with the data about the planet above which pulled at O'Neill's mind like a half forgotten dream.

"That's sort of the problem, the planet is located in unclaimed space at the edge of the Goa'uld Moloc's space, but is also a known target for scavengers and pirates that are known to operate in this area. The Trinium isn't just in the ground in ore form but a lot of it has been refined into metals which are on the surface."

"Felger the only way for that to have happened is if the planet had been heavily mined and the refined materials used for construction …" The thought that he was saying stopped abruptly as he suddenly realized that he knew the gate address on the screen. "This had better not be where I think it is Felger."

"Well, sir it is a lot of refined metals which are almost perfect for construction of ships, fighters and orbital stations which we need to defend the planet. The buried ores can still be mined using the native facilities if they survived or we can do it with our own equipment. Either way general, we can easily get the materials which we badly need, it's just that … it will be a bit … erm, icky."

"Really?" O'Neill said, raising an eyebrow in a masterful impression of Teal'c at how incredibly wrong the idea was, sure they could increase production and even build a few more orbital battlestations but the planet was technically a grave yard.

"The only other option would be for us to have a lucky strike in one of the systems which we control or are on good terms with, sir. Trinium within the area's which we control is getting rarer as we use more and more as we excavate it." Felger obvious enthusiasm for this beginning to override his initial nervousness. "We know from the reports of not only SG1 but also SG3, 5, 7 and general Hammond as well as that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of tons of refined Trinium on the surface of Tollana, perhaps even enough to build not only the flight of Acidalium destroyers and Starmax bombers and several dozen missile platforms or maybe one or two of colonel Carters Super Gottfried cannon stations."

"What he means, General." His assistant doctor Angstrom spoke up in an attempt to calm the situation between the general and the man she was in love with. "There is a way which we can sort through the material, but it will mean removing a Minerva class from the defense fleet or lending one of the Asgard's vessels. With access to the beaming technology on them it would allow us to filter any inorganic material from everything else and then we could just bring it home for refinement as we currently do with the ore's that are mined."

"Felger, you might be a royal pain in the neck but you are right, it is a perfect place to gather Trinium and other resources. The idea has been suggested over the last year or so since their destruction, but we've not exactly had the resources to spare or a ship to get there since the gate was destroyed during the attack by Tanith. Now we're even more reliant on ships what with the Archangel and three Minerva's being sent to assist Atlantis, Tollana is just too remote for us to get to at the moment without a stargate."

"But…"

"But?"

"There is another reason for the trip to Tollana sir." Angstrom said interrupting Felger. "Their technology was more advanced than even the Zentradi, and centuries ahead of us. There is all kinds of things which we might be able to discover from the ruins and debris of Anubis attack. There could also be survivors, and functioning weapons technology."

"Ion cannons?" O'Neill asked, remembering the first time he saw them in action. "Haven't the scienctists at the SGC already got the technical stuff for them from before the attack?"

"Yes sir, we do but … it is always quicker to make a prototype if you have access to the actuall device to reverse engineer."

"You have no clue how to make them, do you?" O'Neill said knowing when someone was trying to bluff him, normally Reynolds at the weekly SG team commander's poker game.

"Well we have the schematics, a working knowledge of the theory behind the use of frequency nullification and energy boosting properties for the plasma shells used in the ion cannons main …" Felger said switching to technobabble to try and confuse the man that most of the SGC thought was dumber than dirt, before he was interrupted by O'Neill.

"Yes or no Felger. Do you know how to build Tollan designed ion cannon's?" O'Neill repeated looking the other man square in the eyes.

"In a word … No." Felger said, his ego deflating a bit.

"That's all I wanted to hear. Alright I'll contact general Hammond and see if we can send one of the new ships there when he has finished his conference. If, and I reiterate 'IF' the general gives the go ahead to send a ship to do a recon scan of Tollana and its system, then 'IF' it's successful, we will consider sending an expedition to gather resources and look for survivors. Once we get the gate up and running again, then we'll send you and your team through, but until then no dice." O'Neill said before continuing. "In the meantime, we need your people doing their jobs and upgrading our traditional and space capable warships, including the helicarrier's as quickly as possible. Understood." He said making the two scientist know that it wasn't a question.

"Yes sir. Thank-you general it is greatly appreciated." Felger nodded knowing it was the best that he would get as the general left his lab. O'Neill was already exhausted from a very long day that so far had included several meetings with the science section of the SGC, two briefings for SG teams going on routine missions and chewing out several of the newbies to the base about the dangers of level 32, and he still had a dozen or so more meetings to go including one with Hammond and president Hayes to inform them about the status of all of the current and newly christened Tau'ri defense force space navy, the growing network of orbital defense platforms and the newly designed unmanned pulse plasma turrets, based off Goa'uld staff cannons, being built across the surface, in orbit and at all of the Lagrange points around earth space.

"General?" Looking up, O'Neill saw on the more senior members of the base who was acting as his aid and attaché standing behind the markings for the three heavy duty blast door that lead to Felger's lab and gestured for the young woman to join him on his way back to the main briefing room and his office. The young second lieutenant looked hesitant as she fell into step with the general, and a little upset, putting the veteran officer senses on alert.

"Lieutenant?"

"Sir … a message was received ten minutes ago in the communications center from the UN … I'm sorry sir but you are requested to report to the UN security council within the week, to answer the charges that brought against you at the Hague." She said with a genuine tone of sorrow for the man who had saved the planet a year ago.

Gob smacked O'Neill continued walking, finally after a few seconds they reached the lift back up to the main part of the SGCs complex and O'Neill pinched the bridge of his nose before looking at the junior office.

"… Alright." He said sighing, "This day just keeps getting better. Alright contact Arcadia and the White House, I think that we will need to bring my meeting forward a few hours. This day just got a whole lot longer." He said as he stepped into the lift with the lieutenant as the unscheduled activation alarm sounded though out the base.

-{[]}-

"Too Slow! Too Slow!" Executor Granger said as he finished running a group of Imperial personal through an assault course on the Archangel as it raced through hyperspace towing the Minerva, Orion and Daedalus to the besieged Atlantis expedition on Zion. "I've seen first day orbit centurions move quicker! Now MOVE!"

"I see why the MACO second platoon have taken to calling Granger the 'terror of deck sixteen' behind his back." Joked Hudson from the observation deck above as he sent the handful of Hansa centurions through the course again.

"I know." Replied a giggling Dvorak before she turned serious again. "But we are only thirty-one hours out and we've no idea what type of tactics these Wraith use other than scaring the primitive peoples of the Pegasus galaxy into running, before sweep beaming them up for use as food stock."

"I know, that's why I want all of our fighters and Ghosts to load for war." Hudson said as the pair moved off towards the main hanger of ARMD 2 where Murdoch's people were going over the Thunderbolt, Durandal veritechs and Ghost drones fighters before moving on to the Destroids to make sure that they are battle ready before the upcoming battle. "That's why when we arrive I want weapons and engines targeted first."

"Understood." Dvorak said entering the information on her PADD. "I'll also task the monsters for long-range bombardment while the Tomahawks with be used to boost our anti-air and CIWS array."

"Ok, also before arrive schedule a damage control drill for all shifts, simulate a fire in the missile magazines, loose of the bridge and explosive decompression at the same time and an anti-boarding party action."

"As you order, Kira."

"Pass the word. Commodore Hudson, sub-commander Dvorak to the bridge. I say again Commodore Hudson, sub-commander Dvorak to the bridge please." Came the voice of lieutenant Welsh over the public address system, having not gone with Devil squad, due to a lucky shot from one of Phat's Jaffa during their raid, which had broken her leg in three places.

-{[]}-

Several minutes later the two senior officers walked onto the bridge which was slightly bathed in the hue of the hyperspace tunnel despite the polarizing of the forward viewport that stretched the entire height of the bridge to find Welsh, her leg in a medical exo-cast walking with a cane over from the comm-station towards them. "Commodore, sub-commander, we've picking up a signal. It sounds like a distress signal."

"What's our location Meer?" Dvorak asked, having softened towards the younger woman over the last two years since the battle against the Prometheans.

"Outer edge of the Orion-Cygnus are of the Milky-way ma'am."

"Let's hear it." Hudson said sitting down sitting in his command having snagged a raktajino on the way from the hatch.

A few seconds later a heavily static filled comm-channel opened and a very human sounding voice came from the audio only channel. "Help … require assistance … have fail … power out. Repeat stranded … need." Was all that could be made out before the channel filled with static and the computer closed it.

"Sounded human." Dvorak said.

"I know, that doesn't seem right though as the only humans ships this far out are the three Minerva's we're towing." Hudson said stroking his chin in thought, having developed the habit over the last two years.

"This could be a trap by one or more of the Goa'uld, but …"

"But if it is a genuine distress call then I'm duty bound to investigate as I'm sure that you are." He said getting a nod in reply from Dvorak. "Meer, how far off is that call coming from?"

"It's about ninety light-years into the void between the Milky Way and Pegasus, fifty light-years off our current course, boss." Campbell said pulling up the information on her station before taking a sip of her own raktajino. "At current speed we can be there in around thirty minutes."

"Alright then alter course and set level two throughout the ship and let the other ships know, that we will be making a short stop." Hudson ordered turning to face the flight operations station, currently manned by major O'Neill. "April as soon as we are out of hyperspace launch two FAST packed ESINT capable Thunderbolts to have a look."

"Aye sir." O'Neill said as she stood at the flight operations station for this shift, and after a quick look at the flight status reports assigned two pilots from dragon flight for the mission.

Half an hour later the four ships dropped out of hyperspace into the void between the galaxies, ten million kilometers from a debris field of a Ha'tak and two other Goa'uld ships. The closest was a cargo ship with very visible damage all across its drive section and around its ring receiving array, while the second was an Alkesh with some blast damage to its hull but looked intact just unpowered. So as well as the ordered Thunderbolts, O'Neill used her command authority to have the Minervan and Daedalus launch a three craft flight of the new Star Cobra fighters to provide cover while the two Goa'uld craft where recovered.

After around ten minutes, and a short fight which resulted in the Thunderbolts liturually pulling the staff cannons from the Alkesh while the Star Cobra's took out its engines, before magna-locking onto and towing the two craft into one of the Archangel's secondary landing decks. After several minutes the earth made fighters launched again and returned to their own motherships for refule and rearming ready for deployment against the Wraith if need be.

An hour after the ships had arrived they all jumped out again on course for Zion, the only evidence that they had even stoped at the debris field was a small cloaked sensor and sub-space comunicitaion relay probe the size of an VHT1–Spartas hover tank from the second robotech war.

-{[]}-

"Report." Dvorak commanded as she entered the secondary landing deck where the two captured craft had been brought in.

"We've gained entry to the cargo ship and found two Jaffa from Yu's forces, all K.I.A. ma'am." Reported gunnery sergeant Forge who had lead the borading party of the cargo ship as the sound of a Zat'nik'tel firing was heard coming from the hatch to the Alkesh's cargo bay.

"What in guinee!" Dvorak said turning to see a Kull warrior walking out the hatch with a zat'nik'tel in each hand firing one shot at everyone in sight.

"Light it up!" Shouted Forge as she opened fire with her modifed FN-P117B rail gun as she dived into cover behind a tool cart, hitting the warrior in the left leg and breaking it clean off at the knee sending the drone to the deck which instantly began to clutch it's now missing lower limb.

"That's not normal." Dvorak said from her own cover behind the leg of a Thunderbolt in guardian mode with her own pulse pistol in hand. "Hold fire!"

Instantly the MACO's held fire while a small squad moved into secure the drone under the cover of the rest of their squad and the hanger crew armed with heavy renches.

"Ouch … hay watch it." The drone said as a pair of MACO's put the trinium mangnetic binders around its wrists, after stripping it of the plasma repeater gauntlets and zat'nik'tels it had droped. Once it was secure they applied a field dressing of bacta-gel to the leg as Dvorak walked over.

"Once medical have cleared our 'guest', strip the armour and throw it in the brig under a level one lockdown." She odrered.

"Yes ma'am." Forge replied, nodding to the four men squad who man handeled the drone out of the hanger and towards a nearby infirmary before taking it to the brig.

Dvorak and Forge walked over to the Alkesh, once they were closer Dvorak spoke up. "Have Murdoh's mad men and executor Granger or captain Revell go over this ship with a denique tooth comb. I want to know how and why these ships where out here in the void, their cababilities, engines the whole nine yards."

"Aye ma'am." Forger replied, "I'm sure this will make the commadore's day when the report gets back to the Earth ships that the Goa'uld where this far out into the void."

Dvorak chuckled, shaking her head at the gunny. "You Sasha have a talent for having a masterful skill for understatment. I recommend going into politics when we get back home." Before both women broke down with laughter as they imagined the reactions from the new Tau'ri space defence high command when they learnt that the Goa'uld where trying to reach the Pegasus galaxy.

-{[]}-

"Pass the word throughout the ship, captain Revell report to hanger delta two one bravo. Captain Revell report to hanger delta two one bravo."

Angel sighed, having been made the intelligence officer for the Archangel six months ago, as she was just about to slip into bed from the previous battlestations alert and being caught up in an anti-bording simulation on deck twenty-three, when she heard her name being called over the ships internal comm-system. Reaching over sleepily to the comm-link next to her bed before a second call could be made while pulling on her uniform.

"Bridge." Answered Welsh almost instantly.

"Janet, its Angel what's going on?" she asked fixing her hair into a lose ponytail.

"Jen, the sub-commander needs you down in delta two one bravo ASAP. She wants you to go over the two captured Goa'uld ships which we just recovered." Welsh said, sounding entirely to chipper for how tired Revell was.

"Understood Janet, I'm on my way." She replied closing the comm-line, heading out the door from her quarters to the hanger after making a quick stop at a mess hall to get a thermos of extra strong raktajino and some ration bars.

It didn't take her long for her to recheck the hanger, even having stopped off in the mess hall, but when she did she was stunned by the sight which greeted her. The deck crew where crawling all over the Alkesh taking photos and acting as if they were college students at a kegger for the last few days while hanging off it as if it was some form of trophy.

"Chief!" She practically yelled out over the smaller hanger deck towards the master sergeant that ran this particular hanger.

Hearing that he was being shouted he turned away from the ghost drone fighter that he was working on catching sight of what is going on, instantly his face soured at the sight. "Yes ma'am?" the master sergeant asked snapping to attention in front of the senior officer.

Angel returned the salute as she pointed towards where the deck crew where acting like school kids high on sugar. "Get those children down off that ship and lets figure out from those ships and work out what it is they can do?" she said softly but the annoyance in her voice was evident.

The master sergeant gulped as he nodded turning to face the crewmembers in question. "Hay!" he barked out at the top of his voice. "Get! Your! Ass! In! Front! Of! ME NOW!"

The deck crew which had been messing around on the two craft all stopped and made their way over slowly to where the deck chief and Angel where waiting.

"That's right, just take your time." The deck chief sarcastically called out, "you're not on leave! GET OVER HERE NOW!"

Hearing this the crew began to move with purpose as the deck chief's temper was legendary when it blew, and it was beginning to show. All twelve of the crew lined up in a perfect parade ground formation at attention. After watching them for several moments the chief walked up and along their three ranks slowly, scowling at them the whole time. "You twelve are a sorry excuse for a deck crew." He growled at them. "I have a senior officer here trying to do a job, and you lot are acting like a bunch of Martian ticks climbing all over those ships as in a child's play zone! You have embarrassed not only yourselves, but me and the rest oh hanger delta twenty-one B!" He snarled as he adopted a very sinister looking smile. "And now you get to pay for it."

Their face's fell as Angel stepped forward an equally evil looking grin on her face, as she took a sip of her raktajino, before she addressed them using the same tone she did with pilots that she commanded. "I want those two ships inspected under a level one inspection from bow to stern for damage. After that I want to know the who, what, were and how these things work, everything from shields and sub-light engines to life support and the heads."

"That will take all stupri night!" the youngest of the trouble makers complained, his voice half breaking.

"You know I think that it will!" the deck chief snapped getting the man to go ridged again, "So if you jarheads hadn't screwed up I would have rotated you out with the relief shift, but since you have all this extra energy, I'm going to put it to use. Note one of you goes off shift until the captain here says she has what she needs."

Angel looked over the now seething deck crew for a second, and it was evident that she was now their number one enemy for the next few days as far as they were concerned, meaning that it was going to be a very interesting few days to say the least. Finally she nodded dismissing the group.

Slowly the small group dispersed, muttering and cursing in a mix of Zentron and standard as they went. Angel held back a few seconds until the crew were out of ear shot before turning to face the deck chief with a smile. "You chief are one truly evil spawn of Kyron, remind me never to piss you off." She joked.

The chief's expression remained stony as he watched the crew get back to work. "Ma'am, it's my job to be a spawn of Kyron, if I get nice they get sloppy, then someone dies."

Angel nodded in understanding, she was the same before being grounded and made a spook, and took out a PADD and a hand scanner. "Ok, I guess I'll start with the Alkesh's weapons, thanks chief." She said walking over to where Vortex and Starstorm had placed the weapons that they had ripped from the Goa'uld bomber.

"No problem ma'am, I'll be over here working on this poorly Ghost if you need me." He said walking back to the drone fighter he was working on when she entered the hanger.

Angel watched him go for several seconds and then cast her gaze onto the captured Alkesh. "Ok," she said to herself having scanned the cannons, "Let's see what makes you tick and how you got out here you little bitch."

-{[]}-

Vala Mal Doran started awake to find herself in a holding cell, but not a Goa'uld style one, and a man wearing a set of advanced armour, which again wasn't that of the Tollan remnant. Darting her eyes around she came to the conclusion that she had been captured by either the rising Tau'ri or the ancient and feared Asgard, meaning that her luck had finally ran out.

Continuing to cast her eyes around the cell she could tell that they didn't like doors, as the exit to the cell was open with a blue light around the wide entrance and that her guard hadn't noticed that she was awake. Thinking that it was safer that they thought her still asleep she reclosed her eyes so that they wear hardly open but she could still see, while opening up her sense listening to what was going on around her.

After about two hours, she heard the sound of a set of heavy doors opening somewhere nearby and a pair of people marching towards her cell. When they got close enough she could see that it was a man and a woman both in a similar set of uniforms to her guard with a green turtle neck under a grey jacket, and that the woman was addressing the man.

"It seems that cargo on the Jaffa ship is weapons grade naquadah, about fifty-three thousand metric tons and several dozen crates of Goa'uld style stun grenades." She heard the woman say, describing the cargo which she had tried to steal from Yu's forces.

The man, who she could see was taller than most even some Jaffa, nodded. "Have them secured in the secure cargo deck. Have you figured out why our 'guest' was in the armour of a Kull warrior?" He asked nodding towards her cell.

"No Kira," The woman replied using the man's name, "we're still looking over the crew section of the Alkesh for anything we can find but nothing so far other than a lot of jewellery, cloths and various other Goa'uld style devices even a voice modulator and something that seems to generate a eye flash like a Goa'uld."

"What about the Alkesh itself?" Kira asked.

"Angel's had the deck crew crawling over the and inside it for the last twelve hours straight, she says she should be able to report to you in about an hour, two at the most." The woman said.

"Good." The man, Kira, said, "Tell her once the report is done to get some rack time, she may be in intelligence now but she knows how to fly a Konig and Thunderbolt so I want her rested before we reach Zion."

"Yes sir." The woman agreed. "But if I know her she will probably just change into a flight suit and sleep in her plane's cockpit."

Kira rubbed his eyes wearily, having been in a vertical meeting with Caldwell, Gladys and Nexx about the defence plans for Atlantis now only fourteen hours away. "Right, knowing her she'll be there itching to get this over with to get into the fight rather than sitting around and watching, but right now I would settle for our 'guest' not pretending to be asleep."

Realising that she had been made she slowly stretched in a very provocatively way, while getting up. "Well since you were so kind after I was shot." Vala said trying to talk her way out, but a quick look at the pair made her realise that she won't be able to lie her way out if this one, even if this Kira was kind of cute, she decides to do something that she hadn't done since she was a very young child and tell the truth. "So I take it we are on our way to some sort of Tau'ri prison complex?" She asked affectionately.

Hudson merely shook his head slightly at Vala, "No we are currently on course for the Zion system in the Pegasus galaxy. In fact we with be there inside of the day, to assist a mission which we lost contact with recently."

Vala smiled at hearing that. "Well if there is anything that I can do to help, please let me know. I'm actually quite good at finding things."

Dvorak snorted and rolled her eyes before replying, to the woman who was obviously a thief. "Look miss. That is not what we had planned."

"Oh what then?"

"We are going into combat, both in space and planet-side. So we are going to keep you locked up here so we can keep an eye on you, obviously without your armour so we know where you are, but if you so much as step out of line even an inch…" Hudson said leaving the last sentence open, so that Vala's imagination could fill in the blanks with what could happen to her.

Gulping she nodded very slowly, realising that she had bitten off more than even she could handle when she had taken this contract from the Lucian Alliance in attempting to capture a Tau'ri ship. "I … understand."

-{[]}-

"Let me pass!" Teyla Emmagan, the leader of the Athosian people whom the Atlantis expedition had rescued from a small scale Wraith culling the first month the expedition was in Pegasus, shouted as she ran into the lower area of stargate operations in the central tower. Hearing the commotion from below doctor Weir, major Sheppard and colonel Everett and Newman, who everyone knew to be called 'Over watch' moved over to the balcony which overlooked the embarkation room to see a pair of marines holding her back. "I need to talk with doctor Weir!"

"Teyla?" Weir asked looking at the scene below and seeing the fear in the other woman's eyes, "What is it?"

"The Wraith … They are in Atlantis!" Teyla shouted up to her in the control room, instantly the military personal present started to issue orders to the rapid response teams to begin sweeping the city, as lieutenant Ford moved down from the spotters station to join the rest of his off-world team and the command tower's defence force.

"Those darts which made kamikaze runs, the pilots must have beamed out right before they impacted." The young lieutenant said.

"So they're trying to take the city?" Everett asked only now catching onto their plans, "How many are we talking about?"

"Both Devil Air and Land counted about thirty, maybe thirty-five hit in and around the city, with around a dozen hitting in the water between the pier going on a report from Devil Sea." Newman said, having had a brief report from the other three members of Devil squad about two hours after the last wave had been repulsed.

"And no way to track them with the internal sensors down." Everett said, shaking his head as Ghost squad ran past to begin sweeping the tower for any Wraith.

"Well we have this." Sheppard said as he reached into one of his chest rigs pouches and removes an Alteran style life signs detector, that the expedition had found in the first few days of the mission, and shows it to the colonel. The display on it showing many light blue dots over a small wire frame representation of the embarkation room, control room and the jumper bay above. "It can't differentiate between the life signs of the Wraith, human or Zentron, but if we confine all base personal to secure areas, then anything that shows up out of bounds will be a hostile."

"Do you mind?" Everett says holding out his hand for the scanner.

Nodding Sheppard hands the device over. "It won't do you much good sir. It only works for people that have the ATA gene active."

Everett nods taking the device and holds it up so Sheppard can see it and smugly says. "I took the gene therapy too." As Teyla and a half dozen other Athosian's came up flanked by Devil Sea and Land having just finished reloading their missiles and other expended munitions from during the nights fighting.

"We wish to help." Teyla said when she is about two paces away from Everett and Sheppard, which caused the former to turn around to face the small Athosian group. "This is quite a large city colonel. Will you not need to have as many people conducting the search for the Wraith as you can?"

Everett and Teyla stared at each other, the two iron willed leaders unwilling to give an inch about their plans to protect the city from the Wraith. Finally after a few seconds Everett signalled to one of the nearby marines. "Captain, get some weapons for these people."

"Yes sir."

Everett smile at Teyla who nods in reply at the faith he was showing her and her people, after what he had said two days before just after he had arrived from Earth.

-{[]}-

While Teyla was having her silent argument with Everett in the embarkation room in the control tower McKay was once again trying to get a still reluctant Beckett to sir in a control chair, which while being out of all known Alteran weapons, it could still activate the fortress-city's star drive even though they didn't have anywhere near the power to activate anything other than the lights and most basic of systems.

"Look Rodney you know that there are other people on the base that can use Alteran technology, doctor Kusanagi for example, I'd bet that she would love a chance to help." Beckett implored.

"I'm exhausted and starving so sit down!" McKay orders pushing him towards the dais where the chair was as Beckett gulped his suddenly dry throat. "Look Carson it's out of drones, so you couldn't do any damage even if you wanted to." Beckett nods slowly and reluctantly sits in the chair which reclines and activates sensing his Alteran gene.

"Thank-you. Ok, we're in business. Power levels from the mark three reactors are holding steady." McKay says over his radio which connected to his Czech counterpart up in the jumper bay above stargate operations, as he continues to move around the room around the several MACO's and marines which were guarding the room now that it was confirmed the Wraith where in the city.

-{[]}-

As McKay is working in the chair room, Everett is leading a mixed fire team of MACOs and marines on search and destroy missions for any Wraith that where in the northern sectors of the fortress-city. In part of the eastern sectors Teyla is also leading another mixed group, this one consisting of her people and MACOs on hunt for any Wraith that they could find.

Meanwhile in the western part of the fortress-city, Ford is making his way down one of the hallways seemingly on his own, even though is protected from the shadows by two people. Half hidden nearly is a simple Wraith drone, and as Ford rounds the bend in the hallway the drone lashes out at him sending him flying into the wall at the other end of the hallway. As the drone walks towards him he still fails to see Ford's companions, but just as the drone is about to feed on him both Sheppard and Devil Land, better known as Rockwell, open fire on it with a concentrated burst of P-90 and Plasma repeater fire, killing it, and as Ford is getting to his feet again Sheppard puts a further two three round burst into the head of the drone at point blank range, spraying brain matter all over the hallway making sure that the drone is dead.

"You ok?" Sheppard asks Ford as he pulls out his life sign detector, dispute the fact that Rockwell's Fire Force assault weapons system has a more powerful version built into it.

"Yeah." Ford says rubbing his shoulder slightly, from where the drone had hit him before his flying lesson down the hall. "How about one of you two be the bait next time?"

"Maybe. Next time?" Sheppard half-heartedly his focus on the screen of the life signs detector, while Rockwell just shrugs. "Ok, were clear. This way."

-{[]}-

Up in the control room the stargate had just activated and a brief radio message had been sent through the gate before it had shut down just as Weir walked into the control area from her office across the short bridge.

"Ma'am, we just received a response from the Genii." One of the none military technicians said seeing her walking into the control room after the gate had shut down.

"Let's hear it." Weir said nodding to the man who activated the playback of the recorded message which had been sent to them moments ago via the stargate.

"This is Prenum of the Genii. We have had our past problems but we welcome the chance to reopen a dialogue between our two peoples. You may send a representative, one person unarmed." The slightly statically filled transmission said over the control room's speakers.

"Is that it?" Weir asked looking at the technician.

"Yes ma'am." The technician relied with a short nod.

"Colonel Everett, this is Weir," She said into her comm-unit, "Just as we hoped, the Genii have asked for us to send a representative to negotiate. I'm all set to go."

"Good, I can't imagine anyone who is more qualified." The gruff voice of Everett said back over the comm-link, "If you pull this one off I'll buy you a drink."

"You got a deal." She said, before turning around to face the gate technician, "Chuck, please dial up the Genii gate."

-{[]}-

Twenty minutes later Weir is led blindfolded into a room and pushed into a chair roughly, before having her wrists handcuffed to the chair behind her back by the guards. Once they were certain that she was secure to the chair they left, closing the door behind them, allowing the other person in the room to step out of the shadows who was hearing the uniform of the highest ranked member of their military dictatorship.

After several seconds in which the man simple walks around the room merely looking at the woman bound to the chair, he decided to speak. "Greetings doctor Weir." He said, chuckling slightly. "My name is Prenum, the new leader of the Genii. To say that I was stunned, no not stunned, astonished that you would not only ask us for help but come here, alone, and unarmed."

"You heard our message." Weir said trying to look under her blindfold and see the face of the man that she was talking to, while bound to a chair. "The Wraith are at our door."

"And we are understandably delighted at the prospect of your people's demise." Prenum said sounding very much like a snake oil sales man.

"That may be so." Weir said calmly, her years of dealing with the UN and other politicians, not to mention Robert Kinsey, coming into play. "But still, we have something which you want."

"C4." Prenum said, realising that Weir had the upper hand and might suspect what he was planning to do with her.

"Yes." Weir said, smirking inside with the ease with which she was leading the Genii leader down the path that she was planning, not that he would ever realise that he had been played. "But we have more than that, we have a chance for you to test your weapon, without risk to yourselves or your planet while striking a blow against the Wraith. You have no idea how close they are."

"The Wraith have come doctor." Prenum said sounding very sombre, "Six days ago. We were fortunate enough to detect there approach and had more than enough time to shut down our reactors. Hundreds of our people lost their lives on the surface, but the thousands that call our underground complex's home went undetected. So you see, the threat from the Wraith to the Genii has come and gone. So far as they are concerned this is a dead world and the Genii are no more."

"So why did you really ask for a representative from my people to come here."

"Why, so we could trade your life for a supply of C4."

"I have already offered you the C4."

"And you want to use our prototype weapon we have made from the design that doctor McKay provided for us. That is not a bargain for the Genii."

"And what would you do if you had the C4 at this moment?" Weir asked appearing to be slightly angry, "Incorporate it into the bomb?"

"Yes."

"Then test it?"

"Of course."

"And I'm giving you the chance to test your bomb on a Hive ship with no risk to your forces, and still have more than enough to build a dozen more. Now if you are too proud or too stubborn to see…"

"Be careful doctor." Prenum warned her cautiously.

"I am way past carful!" Weir spat back, the stress of the situation and her concerns for those on Atlantis becoming more than a little worrisome. "Now you know what the deal is, and it is a fucking good one, so either that it or let me go!"

-{[]}-

While Weir is negotiating with the Genii for the results of their version of the Manhattan project, doctor Zelenka is working on one of the pull down access panels at the back of a puddle jumper while one of the Archangel's MACOs that was also on Cochrane's science team was working on an open Zentron laptop in the front of the small transport shuttle.

"Okay, yeah, that's got it." He said tapping his comm-links ear piece to talk with McKay and Beckett do in the chair room.

"Okay Carson, give it a test." McKay said over the comm-link, "Just clear your mind and think about the jumper. Go through the motions in your mind of powering up the jumper for a trip to the mainland."

"Come on, come on, come on." He muttered as he began to pace around the passenger area of the jumper. "Anytime now."

Sighing into the comm-link McKay continued, Carson, look I know you're tired, but I know that you can do this, just activate the jumper."

It was a tense few minutes before anything actually happened, first the flight controls slowly came on then the rest of the displays and the cabin lights. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" he said in delight almost jumping for joy at the successful remote activation of the jumper. "Rodney! Rodney! It works!"

"Thank god!" McKay said as he again sighed over the radio channel, while in the background of the jumper bay was light up with the sound and light from the activation of the stargate below the hatch which lead down to the embarkation room from the jumper storage bay.

"This is Weir." He heard over the senior staff comm-link frequency, sounding just as tired as him. "I've got two of the Genii prototype bombs."

"Prototypes. Right." McKay said sounding like he just woken up.

-{[]}-

Outside the last set of doors which lead to the auxiliary control room for the fortress-city, Teyla and two mixed squads of MACOs and marines are fighting off a third wave of Wraith that where being led by a commander that seemed to have a basic grasp of tactics and the drones that he was commanding where slowly pushing the defenders back from the natural choke point. As Teyla and one of her people lent out of cover to return fire on the approaching drones, three stunner blasts hit him which sent him flying down the corridor and into the control room.

Just as the defenders were beginning to run out of ammunition and energy packs for their respective weapons, Ford, Sheppard and the walking one man army that people called Land came around the corner behind the Wraith forces, catching them in a cross-fire from which the Wraith force had no chance of escaping alive, more so when Land opened up with his full arsenal of weapons including his new gauss cannon, that had the power of a Monster class Destroid before it's recent refit using the mineral that had been captured at Phat's prison planet.

"That's all of them." Sheppard said as he approached the defenders from the side that his group had entered, spotting Teyla and several others helping to get the stunned up and off the floor of the control room sending them to the infirmary to be checked out.

-{[]}-

Twenty minutes later, having been cleared by the medical from her trip through the stargate, Weir was heading back to her office where she spotted Everett sitting behind her desk working on her laptop.

"Colonel." She said in shock at seeing the man just sitting down, after nearly two days of solid combat.

Hearing somebody was calling him he looks up and realises that he is in her office. "Well done doctor." He says in greeting, genuine praise coming from him, "I … I … I have to admit, I am impressed." He stutters having her to have failed to get the weapons off the Genii and that he might have to have sent some of his defence force to liberate them by force.

"Well, maybe there is hope for me yet?"

Everett smiles over at her, realising that she was trying to get to know him despite his attitude when he had arrived, as he stands awkwardly and moves to allow her to reclaim her desk. "I'm in your chair."

"I thought that it was your chair?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, I uh, I don't sit much." He stuttered, "I was just going over …" he started pointing towards the laptop on the desk, when McKay came in the secondary door to Weir's office interrupting him.

"We have a problem!" McKay almost screamed, as the P-90 attached to his off-world mission vest swinging slightly due to his abrupt stop. "I've just finished going over the Genii nukes, and they are incomplete. I can finish them, but it's going to take time."

"How much time?" Everett said, instantly switching back to full on military mode.

"About a day."

"Rodney, we don't have a day." Weir said worriedly.

"Like I said, we have a problem." He says turning to return to the lab that he and Zelenka had turned into a makeshift nuclear bomb factory to finish building the two bombs that the Genii had given them, with Everett and Weir following in his wake.

-{[]}-

"You wanted to see me Rodney?" Beckett said as he entered the lab that McKay and Zelenka where using to finish the Genii bombs as the pair worked on removing the casing of the bombs in think heavy gloves and lead lined aprons like you would see at an X-ray department at a hospital.

"Yes, yes I need something to keep me awake." McKay said as the top of the bomb he was working on came off.

"Yeah, me too." Zelenka said taking the screw driver out of his mouth from behind the second device.

"You've already had more than anyone else on the base, and twice the maximum dose." Beckett said looking at the pair worriedly.

"Yeah, well, where making atomic bombs here!" McKay snapped, dropping a pair of pliers on the floor. "Staying awake is kind of a prerequisite!"

"Snappy!" Beckett replied sarcastically, placing his stethoscope around his neck. "All right, all right. I'll get you another stimulant." He replied caving into the two scientist before he left calling out for them to carry on, not that they had actually stopped working.

"Thank-you." Zelenka called out from somewhere in the innards of the bomb he was working on.

-{[]}-

"Times up." Said Newman as he, Ray and two MACOs entered the lab a few hours later where McKay and Zelenka where working in.

"Well that's timing." McKay said as he finished placing the cover back onto the bomb that he had been working on, a little over fifteen hours since the two Genii solders had delivered the weapons to the lab. "We're done." He said receiving a nod from Zelenka.

Moving to one side the pair let the MACOs move the bombs out on the small trollies that they had brought with them for this reason. As the first of the bombs was rolled out of the lab McKay folds his arms in front of him and lays his head on them on top of a nearby work bench, groaning with exhaustion.

"So, chair room." Zelenka said sounding just as exhausted.

"Right." McKay said slowly lifting his head again off the desk.

Splitting up the pair left the lab, Zelenka heading for the jumper bay with the bombs while McKay, escorted by Ray in his cruiser weapons systems, back to the chair room. As the second bomb was moved through the door Newman reached up to the side of his helmet activating the comm-link built into it. Air, Land, Colonel Everett. We're heading to the jumpers with the packages. Repeat the packages are on the move."

"Understood." Everett replied over the link as McCloud and Rockwell just blinked green showing that they understood the message, but just as McCloud had finished his blinked response he broke into the comm-link for everyone on the base including the public address system.

"All call signs. I have a visual on the hive ships! I say again the hives are launching another wave of darts."

A few seconds later Everett came over the city's public address system. "May I have your attention, moments ago the Devil squad operative Air reported the Hive ships and their escorting cruisers are moving into orbit once again. Defence forces to your stations."

"This is Weir, now I know how tired you all are and how much we have asked of you these past few days," She says as McKay and Ray enter the tower with the control chair in. "with any luck the Archangel and Taskforce Atlantis will arrive in time, but until that happens our fate is in our hands." Above the control room Zelenka is guiding the MACO who is carefully with the help of Newman lower the first of the Genii bombs into the back of a jumper. "If during the course of this battle, our defences fail, I will give the order to evacuate. Now we all hope that it won't come to that, but if it does, don't hesitate. That is all."

-{[]}-

"Sir, we're ten minutes out from the de-fold point." Campbell said from the primary helm station wearing her flight suit.

"Understood." Hudson said from the command chair wearing his old CN12 Special Forces exo-frame, which wasn't advanced as those used by Devil squad but it still did the job. "Set level one battle stations, load all weapons and Ghost drones in launch tubes and alert the Minerva, Daedalus to prepare for combat and the Orion to commence landing operations as soon as they secure from hyper speed."

"Aye sir" Hill said from the flight operations station as she began ordering the ghost drones to be loaded into the launch tubes for immediate launch once the ship was out of hyperspace, before talking into her headset and activating the ship wide comm-channel. "Battlestations! Battlestations! Set level one throughout the ship. I say again Battlestations!"

-{[]}-

Ten minutes later the Archangel and the three Minerva class battle carrier escorts dropped out of hyperspace, flanking the Wraith ships and launched a full spread of missiles in a Macross Missile Massacre alpha strike, as they picked up a message on the frequency for the Atlantis military personal. "They haven't detected my approach. The package is armed. I'm going in."

"Sir, I'm picking up a comm-link signal on approach to Tango two's hanger bay, but nothing on scanners, the computer identifies it as major Sheppard. J. TDF." Shouted a tech from a lower comm-scan station on the bridge of the Archangel.

"Deculture! Communications open a channel to that signal." Hudson ordered, which Welsh quickly did and nodded to him, "Major Sheppard de-cloak NOW!"

"What, who is this?" Sheppard asked clearly shocked.

"Authentication code Archangel Alpha two zeta omega." Hudson said using his command code that the SGC had given him for situations just like this.

"Contact!" Shouted Welsh as Sheppard de-cloaked and the first of the Wraith cruisers exploded from the damage that the Minerva and Daedalus where inflicting on it.

"Beam him directly to the bridge!" No sooner had the order for the emergency beam out been given, than the hive ship exploded from within, and Sheppard materialised on the bridge in between Hudson and the helm. "Welcome to the Archangel, major."

"Thank-you sir." Sheppard says in shock as he looks around the Archangel's bridge as two of the cruisers decide to try and take out the Archangel, causing her shields to flare as the weapons fire impacts it.

"Now entering Atlantis scanner range." Welsh said as she directed the Archangels fire at the remaining Hive ship.

"Open a channel." Hudson says nodding to Sheppard.

The major nods, understanding the unspoken order from Hudson. "Atlantis this is Sheppard." He says into his comm-link.

"JOHN?" Weir said, the shock clear in her voice at hearing him given that the signal from his jumper had just been lost as it blew up the Hive.

"How many other Sheppard's do you know?" he asked causing a few of the comm-scan technicians to snigger discreetly at his reply.

"Oh thank god." Doctor Beckett said in the background.

"No, no, no, no, that can't be." McKay said panicking that the Wraith had caught his friend and where forcing him to talk. "We saw the hive go up along a cruiser."

"I assure you doctor McKay, that major Sheppard is alive and well." Hudson said walking over to Sheppard, fighting the urge to beam McKay up and place him in a sealed room with Granger.

"Who is this?" Weir asked, the shock gone and suspicion now clear in her voice.

"Commodore Hudson of the ZSMF Archangel, at your service, ma'am. We stand ready to assist you." Hudson said channelling a bit of his first CO when he had been on the ZSMF Republic for a training cruise his second year at the academy.

"We are glad to hear it commodore." Weir said as the remaining cruisers moved closer to the hive for protection and to coordinate their weapons fire easier at the Minerva and Daedalus while Star Cobra's, Thunderbolts and Ghosts intercepted the advancing Wraith Dart class fighters as Starmax bombers made attack runs on the Hive and cruisers taking out their hyper drives. "I assume that we have you to thank for saving major Sheppard?"

"We were monitoring the situation as we came out of hyperspace," Hudson said as the ship shock from the Monster class destroids near the bridge fired a full spread from the ten gauss cannons at a cruiser vaporizing it due to a hit on the power reactor. "we were unable to get a lock on his transponder until he dropped the cloak on his shuttle."

"Didn't take much convincing." Sheppard sheepishly said.

"Doctor McKay?" Hudson said nodding to Sisko, Ganger and a mixed MACO squad standing by in a transporter room on a display.

"Yes present." McKay says as the sound of a chair being pushed back as us stood up quickly was picked up by the microphones in Atlantis.

"I trust you know what to do with these." Hudson said as he saw the squad's transport cycle finish.

"Doc, your ZPMs." Sisko said in the background, the sound of his fumerllo moving from one side to the other as he spoke.

"How … how … how did they do that?" The shocked voice of Beckett was heard.

"We have a transporter system similar to that of the Asgard." Granger said before McKay could even start to rant.

"McKay how about we get the city's shield online." Sheppard said hoping to keep his friend and team mate focused.

"Yeah, what's say we." McKay said as he could be heard opening the case of three full charged ZPMs and removing one from its transport packing.

"But we still have Wraith beaming in all over the city." Weir practically screamed, knowing that even if they got the shield up, they would need help to kill them all so that they didn't gain access to any of the city's computers.

"Once we finish off these cruisers and the remaining Hive, we'll send in the MACOs and marines on the Minerva and Daedalus, but the Orion is packed with marines that are itching for a fight and once they make planet fall they will deploy them." Hudson said before cutting the channel.

"Sir the hive is launching additional darts." Kusanagi reported from the tactical air space controller's station.

"Have the Starmax's go planet side and assume anti-air defence and cover the Orion." Hudson ordered. "Set the CIWS array to level three and arm the Valiant gauss cannons. Let's end this."

"Aye sir." The relevant stations responded as they began to carry out their orders.

"Gauss what?" Sheppard asked as the first wave of the new darts began to fire on the Archangel before being destroyed by the forward CIWS and destroids opened up, turning the entire area was a wash of blue plasma from the darts and red tracers with a mixture of white contrails from the smaller gauss cannons. The light amount of weapons on the darts doing very little damage to the powerful shields on the Archangel before they were wiped from space.

"Tell the Minerva and Daedalus to gang up on those cruisers, and the Orion to commence landing operations while we deal with the hive." Hudson ordered noticing how the three Minerva's where taking pot shots at both the Hive and its escorting cruisers, that where down to two.

"Sir, the Minerva, Orion and Daedalus copy and state their shots on all ships have destroyed the hyperspace capabilities." Dvorak said from the main comm-scan station.

"Excellent. Tactical ready the main gun and flash message to our forces, move fight to Minerva's main gun strike."

"Aye sir." Welsh replied as for the second time in three years she activated the firing sequence for the main over-technology super-dimensional energy cannon.

"Sir, Orion reports that they have started drop sequence." Someone shouted from the lower section of the bridge.

"About time. Fire Gottfried's one through eight at the hive let's see how tough they are."

Again a chorus of affirmatives rang out, as Sheppard just watched from just behind Hudson's chair as the eight bow mounted Gottfried energy cannons fired all sixteen barrels, sending a cone of emerald green plasma at the Hive which slammed into and then through the side of the Hive causing a large chunk of the forward hull to be blown off.

"Main gun ready sir." Welsh called out, "All allied craft have cleared the lane, target Hotel one and Charlie two and three are in the lane. The Minerva and Daedalus have Charlie one isolated at green ten and are readying to fire their positron cannons."

"Fire." Hudson said almost in a whisper.

Sheppard watched as the bow of the ship split as the beam polarizing system activated and the massive amounts of energy used by the over-technology super-dimensional energy cannon began to gather for a second before being released in a massive beam, hitting all three Wraith ships vaporising them before the crews could even realise that they had been killed. As the explosions started to die down there was a second explosion off to the side as the Minerva and Daedalus destroyed the last cruiser with a time on target shot from all of their weapons, including the positron cannons.

"Sir, the Orion has made planet fall, but the darts are regrouping." Kusanagi reported to Hudson.

"Alright let's finish this, task all forward CIWS arrays, gauss cannons and defence destroid's for anti-air fire and standby to attack pattern Hayes two one delta."

"We're not the target." Sheppard said, looking at the tactical picture and realising what the darts where planning.

"Major Sheppard is correct sir. The formation is heading for the Orion and Atlantis." Kusanagi said reading the tactical screen herself.

"Deculture!" Cursed Dvorak before ordering the Orion to crash dive as deep as they could.

"Elizabeth, you've got a problem!" Sheppard said into his comm-link.

"Yeah, we can see that major." Weir replied over Sheppard's link.

"We're moving to intercept with the fighters and ships, but the Archangel and Minerva's might not make it in time." Sheppard said having heard Hudson order the helm to go to max burn on an intercept course.

"Not a chance." Both Chuck and Campbell said at the same time. "They are going too fast."

"O MUJ BOZE!" Zelenka shouted in the background, obviously manning one of the sensor stations in the control room. "Their approach is ballistic."

"What does that mean?" Weir asked her voice full of panic.

"Their impact velocities will be in excess of then thousand kilometres an hour." Zelenka said. "There is no part of the city which will survive that."

You better get that shield up!" Sheppard begged, his face going white as he said it.

"How much time do we have?" Weir asked Zelenka over the link, which had now been piped into the bridge of the Archangel and the other ships.

"Eighty-five seconds." Zelenka replied, as the forward fighters began to tear into the ranks as they slowly moved out of range of the three capital ships and their fighter escorts.

"Rodney, we need those shields up in seventy seconds or we're dead." Weir said almost shouting into the comm-link to the Archangel and other ships, there was a reply on a different channel so they couldn't hear the reply which Sheppard knew was almost a sarcastic one. "No." Weir said continuing the conversation. "Rodney!" There was a slight pause as they all waited. "It didn't work."

"Twenty seconds." Chuck said, the fighters and capital ships having to turn back or risk burning up as they entered the atmosphere to fast at the wrong angle, from chasing the Wraith fighters.

"Rodney!" Weir snapped, obviously McKay had caused her to lose her temper.

"Yes, yes, yes." Zelenka said in relief after a beep sounded from one of the consoles, before the Archangel's scanners registered a power surge, from the shield activating."

"Impact." Kusanagi said, from her station at the tactical air space station monitoring the airspace around them for any sign of Wraith reinforcements jumping in. It was the only sound on the bridge other than the constant sound of the bridge electronics.

"Atlantis this is Sheppard come in." Sheppard said breaking the silence after a few seconds, as static came through the comm-link. "I repeat this is major John Sheppard on the ZSMF Archangel to Atlantis base, come in Elizabeth, what's your status?"

It was several minutes of tense waiting as the bridge filled with static from the open comm-link, and even the powerful ship based scanners where blinded by the EMP created as over three hundred Wraith darts crashed into the powerful ZPM powered shield over the city. Slowly the scanners clearer before a slightly static filled channel reopened. "Well, we're still here." Weirs voice came through the static before it was cleared up completely. "That's our status."

Instantly the bridge of all three ships cheered in relief at the news as Sheppard sighed with relief. "Don't scare me like that again."

"Sorry," She replied, "What about the Wraith fleet?" she asked concern in her voice.

"All Wraith ships have been destroyed ma'am." Colonel Gladys said breaking into the channel.

"Who is this?" Weir asked trying to match the voice to the IFF's of the Tau'ri ships in orbit of and sailing towards the city from the west.

"Colonel Talia Gladys, ma'am, of the Minerva." Gladys said before the other two ship commanders, colonel Caldwell of the Daedalus and captain Lin Middleton of the British crewed Orion.

"Thank-you, all of you." Weir said in thanks for the crews of the four ships.

"We're moving into stationary orbit up here." Hudson said, though Campbell knew that it was an order, "for the time being. Can we be of any further assistance?"

"We've still got Wraith all over the base." Weir said, sounding tired again.

"We'll begin launching combat equipped Argos from all three ships up here, plus like I said the Orion is packed with British marines just itching for a fight." Hudson said causing the other ship commanders and the bridge crews to laugh along with the staff in the control room of Atlantis before the comm-link closed.

"Major, I'm sure you're anxious to get back to the fight down there." Hudson said as he walked over to where his cousin's station was next to Sheppard off to the side of the bridge by the while the forward holo-screen disengaged and the blast shutter retracted as combat equipped, troop transport and search and rescue Argo's began to launch from the Minerva and Daedalus in the distance.

"Yes sir, thank-you." Sheppard said nodding as he was escorted from the bridge by one of the Archangel by a MACO that had recently finished the training course that colonel Sisko had designed to allow the Blood Haze's centurion combat troops to join the ships MACO compliment so that they were all on the same page so to speak, to one of the launch bays so that Sheppard could catch a ride back down to the city.

Hudson watched as both of the battle carriers moved on a course that would put them into a V formation with the Archangel at the tip in the middle, while the fighters that needed resupply, mostly the Star Wolfs and Cobra's, rotated through them.

-{[]}-

"Preliminary count is forty-three casualties, maybe more." Zelenka said as he and Sheppard walked through the fortified lower level of stargate operations. "I'm still working on lining up actual life signs to people in the city.

"There aren't any Wraith life signs?" Sheppard asks as Newman and Weir join them at the base of the stairs that lead to the control room.

"The last one was discovered in one of the lower parts of the city." Zelenka explained typing on his tablet computer that was linked to the interface that they had set up to access the city's systems, or as much as they could access, remotely as they worked. He died while trying to damage the city with one of their grenades near the outer edge of the city below the water line."

"Three of the British marines from the Orion's detachment where lightly wounded." Weir said, slightly more energetic after having gotten a few hours' sleep thanks to the extra people that had come back from the Alpha site on M1M-316. "Luckily there was no flooding, but Devil Sea is checking around the area in case there is any damage that the city's sensors can't spot just to be sure."

"Have you been able to locate lieutenant Ford yet?" Sheppard asked as the group entered the control room.

Shaking his head Zelenka apologised. "I'm sorry, we've searched everywhere in the city. It is possible that he may have been swept up into one of the Darts."

"Let's not make that assumption."

"I'm sorry major, but we've searched everywhere inside the city, using the Orion's scanners and the city's internal sensors."

"Well what about outside the city?" Sheppard asked, pointing out the window to emphasize his point.

"I don't understand?" Zelenka asked, the confusion clear on his face as he turned around to look at Sheppard.

"Well, expand the sensor." He said gesturing to the sensor control station nearby. "Maybe he is in the water."

"Even if that was the case, there's no chance that …" Zelenka trailed off as he expanded the sensors out to about a mile from the city looking for the subcutaneous transponder that all SG personal had.

"Deculture!" Newman said reaching up to his helmets comm-link switch. "Over watch to Sea and Air. One of our people is outside the shield grid, IFF as AR1-3. Evac bird on route locate and assist."

Even as Newman was talking both Ray and McCloud were already halfway to Ford's location from two different sectors of the city as the Orion lunched a search and rescue Argo to assist to transport him back to the city for medical assistance. However when the two Devil squad members reached the location they instantly called out to each other before Ray called in what they had discovered.

"Atlantis this is Sea. You're going to need extra MACOs in the infirmary before we get there?" Ray said over the comm-link to the control as the search and rescue Argo approached.

"We already do sunny." Beckett said as Ray helped McCloud lift Ford and the Wraith drone that was attached to him by its feeding hand into the back of the Argo.

Twenty minutes later the pair where rushed into the infirmary under heavy guard.

-{[]}-

"Aren't you supposed to be getting some sleep?" Sheppard asked, having just gotten some sleep himself, as he walks into the control room of stargate operations, to see both McKay and Zelenka huddled over laptops and surrounded by people form the four ships filling in for Atlantis personal, who were getting some much need sleep after the siege.

"Well I was trying to just that, but somebody," McKay said shooting a dirty look at a technician from the Orion. "thought that I should know that both the city's long-range sensors are working and that the information on them has been cross checked with the Archangel. We have incoming."

"Yes? And?" Sheppard asks, suddenly praying that what the he was feeling in his subconscious from the city was wrong.

"We've got thirty hive ships coming towards us hyperspace," Zelenka said gulping his suddenly dry throat. "as well as triple that the number of cruisers."

"Their course and speed will have them in orbit in thirty-six hours." McKay said not even sounding tired at all.

-{[]}-

"Deculture! O amor Deus suus Balteus novo bello." Hudson muttered in his native Varauta as he Weir, Sheppard's team minus Ford who was confined to the infirmary under heavy guard, Caldwell, Gladys and Middleton began to sit down in the conference room on the stargate operations level of the central tower.

"Thirty Hives?" Caldwell asked, having a rough idea what the Archangel's master was muttering even if he couldn't understand a word of it.

"They probably called for reinforcements the second that they detected the fleet, or when the first hive went up from the satellite that Peter Grodin was on." Sheppard guessed looking at the rest of the people that knew him nodding slowly.

"Our, research has shown that there are at least a two hundred hive ships and somewhere in the region of three to four times that number of cruisers and other combat capable support ships." McKay informed the group taking a sip of coffee, the dark bitter nectar that the three ships had brought ten years-worth of with them after nearly six months with none.

"At least the shield is up and running." Sheppard said sound like general O'Neill, making everyone that knew the general groan a little, but it did release the tension in the room.

"That only buys us time." McKay whined giving Sheppard an evil glare.

"Well I like time." Sheppard responded in a joking tone again, glad he had gotten a few hours' sleep before this.

"Look the first siege of Zion lasted for a hundred years, I mean, with three fully charged ZPMs the shield will hold, but we're out of drones so in the end we lose." McKay explained as he leaned back in his chair.

"Couldn't we just submerge the city again?" Gladys asked knowing from her briefing packet that the city had been found at the base of an underwater canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon when they had arrived.

"It's a city not a yo-yo!" McKay nearly shouted before calming down again and speaking very humbly. "I don't even know how they did it in the first place."

"How long until they get here?" Hudson asked, now calmed down, and having not been on the bridge when the information on the incoming Wraith armada had been discovered.

"A little over a day." Weir said.

"You know what. I'm sick of this!" Sheppard said shocking everyone present as he looked at the sensor feed on a screen.

"John?" Weir asked when she had recovered from her shock a little.

"Sitting around I mean." Sheppard said a basic plan in mind. "Waiting around for them to come to us. I say that we take the fight to them." He finished explaining his previous outburst.

"We've only got three ships, major." Caldwell said not wanting to commit the Archangel. "One of which is more a supply ship at the moment than a battle ready battle carrier."

"Don't forget about the Archangel." Hudson said getting a feeling for what Sheppard was planning.

"Yes, but all of them have Zentron/ Asgard shields, an armoury full of nukes, anti-air missiles, Gottfried's, Isolde rain cannons, positron cannons plus whatever it was that the Archangel fired."

"Macross cannon." Hudson supplied smirking at the age old joke, as he interrupted Sheppard.

"That evens that odds a hell of a lot, I'd say." Sheppard said nodding to Hudson as he finished talking like he hadn't been interrupted.

"Thirty ships plus their escorts." Middleton reinforced slight worried despite being British and knowing about fighting to the death thanks to the Blitz being imbedded in his nations psyche "I'm all for a good fight but that is worse odds than Nelson faced."

"I'm tell you we've got to send a message to the Wraith," Sheppard said trying to sell his plan to the senior officers. "We're not like the Alterans, we're not going to sit back and wait around for them to come to us. If they don't back off then we have the ability to hit them hard."

"How do you fight a ship in hyperspace?" Gladys asked, knowing that she hadn't had any training for that sort of fight, and judging by the faces of the others they hadn't either.

"You don't." Hudson said, going into teacher mode. "Hyperspace combat 101. Weapons and shields don't work correctly at FTL speeds, and no-one back home knows why."

"The Wraith hyperspace technology is not as effective as the Zentron/ Asgard hybrid hyper drives we use or the Asgard's own." McKay said changing the sensor feed to the projected course of the Wraith fleet. "Not only is it slower, but they need to travel in jumps. So if my calculations are correct they will make one last stop here, around fifty light years away before they make the final jump to Atlantis."

"Doctor Weir?" Hudson asked, having silently had a conversation with the other ship commanders electing which had placed him in charge of the task force.

"It would be nice to have them on the defensive from a change." Weir said nodding absentmindedly. "Ok, let's do it."

-{[]}-

The Archangel, Minerva and Daedalus dropped out of hyperspace in the sensor shadow of the gas giants where they expected the Wraith to be arriving in shortly, and launched two stealth ghost fighters to provide sensor information on the rest of the system.

"All clear sir." Kusanagi reported from the airspace tactical controller's station on the bridge of the Archangel. "Only friendly contacts in the system." Since all the fighters, thunderbolts and Star Cobra's Wolf's and Starmax bombers had been left at Atlantis just encase the Wraith managed to slip past them here.

"I hope where in the right place." Caldwell said over the secure comm-link between the three ships.

"They'll be here sir." Sheppard said from the bridge of the Daedalus next to Caldwell. "I've come to trust McKay when it comes to these sorts of things." He admitted.

"I'll bet." Major Trine joked over the link from the Minerva.

"If we can destroy the first dozen or so as they come out of hyperspace," Sheppard said explaining his plan, "that'll show them that we mean business."

"Contact!" Hill shouted on the bridge of the Archangel. "Hyperspace window opening orange fifteen sir. Reading fifteen hives."

"Standby for attack!" Hudson said calmly as the blast shield dropped over the bridge view port. "Raise shields, activate all weapons, level one battlestations!"

"Aye sir." Welsh said activating the ships battlestations alert. "Battlestations! Battlestations! Set level one throughout the ship. This is not a drill!"

Outside the small battle fleet, fifteen hives dropped from hyperspace along with their escorts in orbit a world that held a small human colony at the beginning of the Bronze Age in terms of development, and due to the stargate being in space it was incapable of being accessed from the surface, so the Wraith normally raided it with Darts, but this wasn't a raid it was a cull before they attacked their Ancient enemies who had returned again.

"Lock all secondary weapons and begin charging the main gun."

"Aye sir."

Instantly the three ships opened fire with their Gottfried's and full spread of both sledgehammer anti-ship missiles and class three Dispar anti-air missiles at the approaching Wraith ships, that were returning fire with their own plasma based weapons.

"That's a kill." Major Marks said from the Daedalus as a Hive ship was destroyed by a lucky shot from two anti-ship missiles hitting its power core.

"Make that two." Trine said as the Minerva destroyed a second hive with her Gottfried's vaporising the hyper drive on her target, causing a feed back into the power grid from the excess energy in the hyper drive's sub systems as it began its recharge cycle.

"The other Hives are adjusting course." Kusanagi said. "New course is directly for us sir." She finished with an evil grin, which her cousin Marauder knew to run away from as fast as he could normally several star systems before stopping to catch his breath. "All ships now entering the fire cone for the Macross cannon and Tannhäuser cannons maximum range."

"Take us right at them." Both Hudson and Caldwell said at the same time to their helms.

The Archangel and Daedalus both moved forward to attack the Wraith fleet using their CIWS and rail guns to shoot down any darts that had gotten through the missile massacre that the three ships had launched, along with the Archangel which used its upgraded Valiant cannons to vaporise any cruiser that came at them.

"Several cruisers are moving to flank us." Someone said from the lower level of the bridge.

"Time to firing range from maximum effect." Hudson asked, since all three ships had their main cannons synched to the Archangel to allow for an Alpha strike similar to that of the Macross cannons had against the fleet of Mardook invasion in 2092 back in their own dimension.

"Thirty seconds." Welsh said as another Hive become a mini sun as its power went critical.

"Deculture!" Newman swore, having come back aboard with the rest of Devil squad and first platoon when the Archangel arrived at Atlantis. "Ventral rail cannon is out of action along with gauss cannon array three-nine."

"The Minerva and Daedalus rear shields are at forty percent, and our own are suffering." Welsh reported from the tactical station.

"New contacts!" Granger shouted from next to Kusanagi "Son of spawn! It's the rest of the Wraith."

"Are we in range?" Hudson asked.

"The original ships are the others are moving away at their best sub-light speed." Replied Kusanagi as she watched the tracks of the ships on her screen.

"Fire the main cannons." All three ship commanders said at the same time.

From the bow of the three ships massive amounts of energy were released. The Wraith ships at the edge of the formation died as the purplish red beams from the Minerva and Daedalus single bow mounted QZX-1 'Tannhäuser' class positron cannons vaporising them while the bright blue almost white beam of the Archangel's own over-technology super-dimensional energy cannon tore into the centre of the formation. After the ships had finished firing only three cruisers remained from the first wave and all were drifting and on fire and the second wave had turned and was firing on them with such an intensity, that the shields on all three ships where close to falling.

"Sir we have a cruiser approaching from indigo two one on a parallel course." Dvorak said as both the Minerva and Daedalus looped around a pair of hives, lunching a single sledgehammer anti-ship missile loaded with a mark VIII nuclear missile at close range. They were so close that nothing could intercept the naquadah enhanced nuclear missiles which slammed into the hives, breaching the outer armour before detonating, causing the hives to explode and break apart as the flash of energy was released consuming the hive and a cruiser nearby. The two battle carriers had already looped around another hive and used them for protection from the shockwave.

"They may be trying to board us!" Hill said shielding herself from an explosion near to her station at flight operations as Cochrane came over with an extinguisher to put the fire out which had sprung up from the explosion.

"Firing up the rapid response teams!" Dvorak said, talking into her headset that was linked to the ships MACO barracks.

"Shield status?" Hudson asked as the bridge shuck from the two monster class destroids stationed along side.

"Under ten percent." Granger said, having moved there from the tactical airspace controller's station to the damage control board.

"Helm set course for Atlantis and engage the fold drive. Flash the others." Hudson ordered.

"Hyper speed on course for Atlantis, aye!" Newman and Campbell said as they moved the Archangel to avoid fire while getting clear to make the jump to hyper space."

"Minerva and Daedalus have jumped."

"This fight is over!" Hudson said as a few of the secondary consoles exploded. Then Newman accelerated the ship towards a Hive ship, skimming it so close that the CIWS array on the underside of the ship tore into the bio-armour of the other ship shredding it and opening entire sections of the ship to space. As the Archangel was about to reach the rear of the hive they were skimming, Newman activated the hyper drive and opened the hyperspace window two hundred meters short of the main fuel cells of the hive, allowing the Archangel to escape. With the ship that generated the window gone the window close, detonating the hives fuel cells as the exotic radiation from the hyperspace window sending the now heavily irradiated and dying aft quarter into a new dimension, not that the Archangel would realise for some years as it was already well out of sensor range of the event.

-{[]}-

"The bottom line is it didn't work." Hudson said over the comm-link as a pair of engineers replace one of the overloaded console on the main level of the bridge.

"Well at least you gave them a bloody nose and something to think about." Weir replied over the link to Atlantis.

"We'll see I very much doubt that we can use this tactic again, plus all three ships have sustained damage." Hudson said.

"It was still the right thing to do." Dvorak said handing a PADD to Hudson, remembering how he had blamed himself during the war, to which he just nodded in agreement. "We should make it back before the Wraith arrive, we left a lot of them burning and heavily damaged."

"I hope so." Weir said signing off on some reports on her own tablet "We'll leave the porch lights on for you." Before nodding to someone to close the channel.

-{[]}-

Three hours later Hudson, Campbell, Sheppard, Middleton, Gladys and a few of the technicians from the Orion exited one of the larger of the city's internal transporters two sections down from the corridor that led to stargate operations, but only one section down from a heavily fortified check point with several heavy Tau'ri and Zentron weapons which had been stationed at it. As the group finished clearing the security station they were greeted by doctor Weir as the all entered the lower level of the embarkation room as the technicians broke off up the stairs at the rear of the control room.

"Welcome back." Weir said cheerfully despite the current situation.

"We've got ten hives and around three dozen or so cruisers about ninety minutes behind our tails." Sheppard said, his P-90 which was still clipped to his combat webbing.

"I wasn't expecting you to land your ships." She said confused as to the reason that all of the TDF ships nestled alongside the south pier which had guided the Archangel in using a tractor beam system that no one knew of until they had locked on to the massive battle-fortress into a dock that looked as if it was purpose built for it.

"Until repairs are finished, the taskforce is going to need the protection that the city's shield as much as the city." Gladys admitted reluctantly, given how some of the Wraith's shots had hit the landing pad behind the control tower and a little too close to the command bunker for her liking.

"Battlestations! Doctor Weir the hives ships have just dropped out of hyperspace just past Zion's moon." Chuck said from the balcony above the group in the control room as someone else raised the city's shield.

"Deculture!" Hudson cursed as the group began to run up the stairs to the control room, McKay and Teyla doing the same from the jumper bay.

"They are getting into some sort of formation." A technician said as Chuck sat down next to the DHD in stargate operations, before the man sized missile that was McKay moved to the sensor station to look at the readout, just as the technician moved out of his way.

"What are they doing?" Weir asked a second before the city started to shake as Wraith weapons fire impacted the shield.

"A rain of death." Hudson muttered coldly so no one could hear him, but Teyla did hear him to which she gave a slightly curious look, as the bombardment on the shield continued and the flashes of blue and orange splashed through the windows around the control room and other areas of the city.

"The shield is holding under the bombardment, but it's under incredible strain." McKay said still at the sensor station.

"How long will it hold?" Weir asked slightly worried.

"If they stop firing then it will hold for millennia…" McKay started before being cut off.

"Are we talking months, weeks?" Weir asked, as everyone looking at him with a stare that would probably melted through the hull of a ship's laminated armour, before he could begin to rant like he did when he was scared.

"Days. At this rate the ZPMs will be depleted in a matter of days!" McKay explained, already running a diagnostic on the shield and power grids to find a reason why. "It will last a matter of days!"

"Conference room. Now." Weir ordered as she was already walking towards the conference room on the other side of the landing from the control room in stargate operations. As the group of senior officers and civilians began to take their seats, and several others, mostly senior NCOs and division heads, the doors closed sealing the room off in a miniature version of the city's shield turning it into a bunker, now that they had the power to do so.

"Going on the reports from the three ships, that intercepted the Wraith, we could have the task force battle-ready within the next ten to twelve hours, but even with the Orion I think that the result will be the same." Caldwell said, having been told by Hudson and Gladys in a tele-conference during the trip back from the battle.

"Even if we destroy these ships this instant, another fleet would show up in a few days, then another a few days after that." Weir said sounding a little dejected with the current situation. "From where I'm sitting, I… I just don't see how we can win this."

"Well now we know how the Alterans must have felt." McKay replied working on his tablet with a feed from the ships in the taskforce and the city's own sensors, attempting to work out how the fire from the Wraith was draining the ZPM modules so fast when compared to the data in the computers from the last time the Wraith had attacked the city with an orbital bombardment.

"They know that this city is the only way to Earth." Zelenka said stating the obvious to everyone present from where he was sat next to McKay and Hudson. "So long as they know that we are here, they will just keep coming."

"As long as they know we're here." Sheppard mused, playing with an empty coffee cup with a gleam in his eye as an idea began to form in his mind.

"Aww hell!" Hudson said, seeing the look on Sheppard's face, and smirking at the man. "Now I 'know' who you remind me of major. It is senior fleet admiral Hunter back home, should I go to level one battlestations now or wait for your plan to be explained."

"What do you mean?" Gladys asked, completely confused as to what the Zentron commodore had just said.

"Zelenka here just said, that as long as they know that we're here, they will keep coming." He said para-phrasing the Czech scientist. "So what if they thought that we were gone?" Causing Hudson to really mumble up a storm of curses in Zentron, Imperial and a number of other languages at the major's latest high-brained plan.

"Then they would have no reason to remain or return." Teyla answered catching on to Sheppard's plan.

"Exactly." Sheppard said grinning ear to ear, like a he was high on laughing gas from the infirmary.

"Wait, what did I miss?" McKay said now that he had finished setting up a program to cross check the current sensor data with the original one on record.

"We disappear." Sheppard said still grinning like a mad man, causing Hudson's cursing to become even darker.

"Destroy the city you mean?" Caldwell asked still working the plan out in his head, along with Middleton and Gladys if he was reading their faces correctly, unlike the last ship commander's poker game where he lost twenty bucks.

"No sir, we just make it look like we did."

"How?" Weir asked as a small smile appeared on her face sin they now had the start of a plan.

"We clock the city!" McKay said snapping his fingers in excitement, and beginning to work on his tablet again.

"Yes. Yes. The puddle jumpers have a cloaking generator, which renders them invisible to the naked eye and more importantly Wraith scanners." Zelenka said excitedly, also working on his tablet next to McKay. "If we just simply remove the cloak generator from one of the jumpers, we could cloak the city."

"I wouldn't say 'simple' but it could work." McKay agreed energetically, looking at the details on his tablet from a file that he had found in the city's data base describing how to do what they were planning.

"This is all well and good." Caldwell said cryptically, having read the mission reports that were in the data burst that Atlantis had sent, while on route to help out the base. "But I'm sure that if the city was to just disappear, they might be able to put two and two together."

"Which is why we fake a self-destruct." McKay said snapping his fingers as he lifted his head from his tablet. "We have one of the ships launch a, say mark XI gate buster, outside the city's shield and detonate it, and while the sensors are blinded by the explosions static we activate the cloak over the city."

"And when the smoke clears nothing but ocean." Weir said smiling.

"What about hard radiation." Middleton asked, knowing that mark nine naqudria enhance nuclear bomb special was the most powerful weapon ever designed and it's only true reason for deployment was to vaporise a stargate and the anything else within a hundred miles of the point of detonation.

"The Archangel's computers can easily workout the amount of time we'd have to wait before we switch from the shield to cloak." Hudson said to the room, now that his mumbled cursing had stopped, maybe he should speak to Doctor Morse about this since it was getting harder to control his Varauta side since he took command.

"What about the displacement issues?" Zelenka asked casually.

"That's easy." McKay said with a touch of sarcasm in his voice towards his friend.

"Okay … what about the hard part?" Asked Hudson knowing how cloaks and shields don't really mix.

"Hard part?" Sheppard asked confused along with all of the military, command staff and a few of the scientist that where still working out the plan in their heads.

"Erm, well when we activate the cloak, it will, erm, for all intent and purposes, well, replace the shield," McKay sheepishly said, stuttering as he explained the basics of cloak and shield systems, "which means that when we turn on the cloak, we … lose the shield."

"We'll be completely exposed?" Weir asked, her smile vanishing instantly.

"Erm … yes." McKay replied nodding very meekly.

"So if they don't fall for this?" Gladys asked, not really wanting to know the answer, and praying that the miracle works of Dupre, Kent and their engineering teams could get the Minerva battle ready quicker than they estimated.

"They'll destroy the city," Sheppard said before leaning forward slightly and tapping the table in front of him, "which, I might remind everyone, is what we were going to do anyway."

"What about the task force?" Weir asked, looking over at the ship commanders.

"The Orion is fresh from the dry dock ready, since we've been off loading supplies rather than being involved in the fighting." Middleton said.

"The rest of us should have our shields to at least battle ready status to be able to break through their lines and jump out, we already know that we can out run them." Hudson said receiving a nod from Caldwell and Gladys.

"Alright then, let's get as many non-essential personal onto the ships as we can just in case." Weir said as Sheppard nodded getting up and leaving to begin the evacuation process.

"I love this plan, I really do." Weir said, her normal excitement returning, before it came crashing down like a fighter jet crashing at light speed. "But, the Wraith know that we have cloaking technology." She finished looking around the room at everyone who was left.

"They are close." Teyla said with a slightly dreamy look on her face. "So close that it is enough for me to connect with them. If I can convince them that we intend to destroy the Atlantis rather the let it be taken just before the explosion occurs, then they might stop their attack?"

"How will we know if they believed you or not?" Hudson asked, as he unconsciously stroked his old Acolyte Special Forces pistol in its leg hosted.

"Once the orbital bombardment stops." Gladys said, remembering the terminology from her training in starship operations and combat two years ago.

"She's right. If the Wraith do indeed believe that we intend to destroy the city, then it would be the last thing that they will want to do or even help us to do it." Teyla explained the dreamy look on her face now replaced with a look that AR1 and Weir had seen many times, that of a warrior and protector of her people.

"Okay. How much time do you need?" Weir asked looking directly at McKay and Zelenka.

"A month." Zelenka said realistically thinking about how much testing and retesting they would need to do on the shield generators and other related systems and sub-systems.

"A few hours." McKay said at the same time having already sent a message to the relevant sections while he had been working as everyone was talking and discussing the plan.

"I'll take the second estimate. Go!" Weir said breaking up the meeting to let the two lead scientists get to work on converting the shield to a cloak, and letting the ship commanders return to their ships just in case the plan failed. As the group exited and was crossing the small landing back to the control room or heading to a transporter station to beam to another part of the city, doctor Beckett came running in from the corridor that lead to the infirmary level, his lab coat flying behind him like a cape.

"He escaped!" He shouted as he practically flew up the stairs from the embarkation area in front of the inactive gate.

"What?" Weir asked shocked.

"Who?" Hudson asked confusion on his face along with Caldwell, Gladys, Middleton and Teyla, as Sheppard came out of the control room.

"Ford." He said now a couple of steps lower from the group panting slightly, though not as much as he would have when he first arrived in the city, due to his run from the infirmary. "He was able to disarm one of the British commando's in the infirmary, and took all of the Wraith enzyme that I had left."

"Ford, this is Sheppard." Sheppard said touching his radios ear piece. "I need you to come to the control room buddy, we're all heading home to Earth." He said only to be greeted by static. "Lieutenant, do you copy?"

"You're just afraid of me major." Ford said over the link as several people tried to trace his location in the city from his radio signal. "You're afraid of what I can do. I'm not listening to you anymore." Ford said disconnecting the link, before the technicians could get even a rough location.

"I'm going after him." Sheppard said, running off down a corridor from the gate room snagging a life signs detector on the way out.

"Nows not the TIME!" Weir shouted after him, but he was already in a transporter and beaming to another part of the city.

-{[]}-

For hours, the key members of Atlantis had been working hard getting everything ready for the plan to fake the self-destruct using a mark seven naquadah warhead since it was deemed that the gate buster was too much for the task and might overload the weakened shield and destroy the city, with McKay and Zelenka crawling in and all over a jumper and its docking station in the bay above the control room to tie the cloaking system into the shield grid. While they were doing that Sheppard was playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with Ford all over the north pier, as all non-essential personal, the Athosian's and wounded where all loaded onto one of the three battle carriers.

All along the Wraith had continued to rain down death onto the city's shield, which even though it was operating, it was doing so with only half of its generators after being working on holding back an ocean for the best part of four million years or being fried from McKay's use of the raw power of lightning to activate them a few months earlier, draining the three ZPM modules at a steady rate.

"Commodore Hudson." Weir asked over the comm-link which was open from Atlantis to the Archangel at all times, as he signed off on some paper work that Campbell had handed him on a PADD.

"We've gotten everyone secure on the other ships doctor. The Orion has the Goa'uld buster all set for launch to an altitude two hundred fifty meters over the upper most part of the shield, we've also got strong locks on everyone still in the city except lieutenant Ford in case we need to beam you all out." Hudson informed her handing the PADD back to Campbell as he took his seat in the command chair, now in his duty uniform instead of his old exo-frame.

"Very good." Weir said sounding relieved, because she hadn't thought of using the transporter system to get everyone out in case the plan failed. "Stand-by." She said before the channel was muted. A few seconds later the channel reopened and the orbital bombardment slowly stopped. "Orion launch the weapon."

"Weapon away." The tactical officer on the Orion said softly over the comm-link between the four ships and Atlantis.

"Attention all personal." Weir said in a clear command voice. "Prepare for detonation flash!" a second later the naquadah enhance nuclear warhead detonated in an airburst engulfing the city, causing the shields to flicker slightly, and the surrounding twenty kilometres in a classic mushroom cloud as it dispersed outwards, blinding the sensors of the Wraith ships in orbit.

"Rodney!" Weir asked over the link as the blinding flash died down even though the Archangel's bridge window was protected by the blast shield and it had polarized to block the worst of it out.

"Look if we switch to the cloak before the blast wave has diminished, we'll be incinerated. Ten seconds." The panicked voice of McKay said.

"All ships stand by sub-light engines, max-power." Hudson ordered over the channel in full on command mode. "Tactical report!" He asked looking over towards Kusanagi as everyone seemed to hold their breath.

"We're cloaked." McKay confirmed as a few bleeps sounded in the background on the link from stargate operations in the control tower.

"Wraith ships are scanning for us sir." Kusanagi said in a slightly hushed tone when the sound of the stargate activating was heard over the still open comm-link.

"What the hell!" A dumbfounded Weir shouted, all pre-tense at stealth gone.

"Where's Ford?" Sheppard asked entering the range of the control room's microphones.

"I assume that's him in the jumper!" McKay panicked as he pointed out the obvious to the handful of people still in the city. "And no I can't override it to shut it down. The jumper is in control!"

"It won't matter if the Wraith can detect the gate activating through the cloak." Weir said also beginning to panic.

"Sir, sensors show that Wraith fleet is breaking orbit and jumping into hyperspace." Kusanagi said, letting out a small breath that she hadn't realised she was holding, as the other ships confirmed her readings.

"Archangel to Atlantis base." Hudson said with a small sigh. "The task-force scanners are indicating that the Wraith fleet has jumped to hyperspace."

"I can confirm that." McKay said almost laughing with relief. "They've entered hyperspace, look I'm going to keep the cloak up for the next hour our two just be safe, but I think that they bought it."

Almost at once a massive cheer broke out from the other three ships as the crews rejoiced. After all they had managed to destroy over two dozen hive ships, nearly a hundred and half a million darts, while saving a city more advanced than the newly recovered Arcadia station in earth orbit. In anyone's books this was a highly successful rescue mission.

-{[]}-

Six weeks after the Daedalus and Minerva had returned back to earth with the wounded that couldn't be moved via the stargate from Atlantis having sent Vala Mal Doran through under heavy guard for imprisonment by the SGC, and the Archangel had dealt with a very vindictive and smart Wraith VI program that was discovered during a routine examination of her computers by their own AI system, that was trying to mine their databanks for information about Earth, its history, defences, strategic information and location, when it was discovered the program had tried to take control of the ship and move it into the chromosphere of the Zion sun without the shields on the ship.

Now the Archangel was slowly backing into the dock at the fortress station that the crew had built before the raid on Phat's planet and the subsequent mission to the Pegasus galaxy to receive a few upgrades that Cochrane and his team had come up with based on their scans of the wraith ships as well as those of Atlantis itself, plus repair the small amount of battle damage they had received to the ventral weapons and resupply their expended stores.

"So Murdoch how long till the resupply and refit is done." Hudson asked as he looked around the observation room, that two years ago Cutter had used to hold his promotion ceremony before he had returned to sick-bay to die peacefully in his sleep, as the rest of the senior staff filled in.

"Resupply of all the spent munitions and the destroyed ghost drones will be done in the next few hours now that we have reattached to the station." Murdoch said taking a sip of his Trojan tea. "The refit is only minor so about a day. Unfortunately we will be docked to the station for a month however, as my team repairs the damaged guess cannons and ventral rail cannons and the burn through we had just as we made orbit of Zion on our way back."

"Well those Wraith ships did pack a hell of a punch." Welsh said, now without her crutch she had when they left for Atlantis.

"I've got some of the science teams going over the sensor records you transmitted back before you left Atlantis on the way back, but it looks like the Wraith weapons are five to ten percent more powerful than those on a Goa'uld Aphosis class mothership or even a Bydo mothership back home." Cochrane said having had six weeks to look over the data and begin designing new weapons and shield upgrades for the ship.

"What worries me is that their ships are organic." Dvorak said, "Unless we can take out their power core then they can just heal any damage inflicted and continue the fight, much like the Cetaborg Imperium."

"Well at least they can't reach this galaxy," Campbell said with a small tired smile, "and now that the orbital defence grid is up and running, it should allow the Minerva, Daedalus and Orion to hold out till the rest of the task-force arrives in ten days."

"Alright, let's do this." Hudson said beginning the weekly staff meeting. "Any other business?"

Two hours later the command crew left the conference room having discussed everything that had been deemed important, and even a few of the funny stories from their respective sections that they had heard from the lower decks, including one about Kusanagi chasing Marauder the length of ARMD2 when he had walked in on her and an imperial in one of the store rooms.

* * *

**Author note.**

Now I know that in the show they only had around 60 hives, but I increased it based on the fact that in the hologram room it showed more than a hundred ships approaching over the course of the first siege with the Aincent's and given the fact that it has been nearly 4 million years since that battle, it would be logical to assume that the Wraith have been building up, or should I say growing up, their forces ready in case they had to renew the fight for the galaxy from the Aincients :) and most of this chapter is loosely based on the original transcript of the show, but of course I have tweeked it to fit the notes that I had made before I typed it up.


End file.
